A federal judge this week ruled that the Biden administration will be prohibited from communicating with social media platforms regarding a broad range of content. The precedent could limit efforts by the administration to combat misinformation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and future public health emergencies.
Judge Terry A. Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana ruled that government departments, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), could not speak with social media companies with the goal of “urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression or reduction of content containing protected free speech.” It is expected that the Biden administration will appeal the decision.
“We are going to continue to promote responsible actions to protect public health, safety and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our election,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a press briefing. “So we're going to continue to do that and promote that in a responsible way. Our view remains that social media platforms have a critical responsibility to take action or to take account of the effects their platforms are having on the American people but make independent choices about the information they present. They are a private entity, and it is their responsibility to act accordingly.”
The attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri filed the lawsuit arguing that the administration had overstepped its bounds in regard to free speech on social media. The attorneys generals claim that starting in 2017, when Donald Trump was president, the government began forming a systematic campaign to control speech on social media.
Both Texas and Florida are similarly pursuing novel state laws banning internet platforms from removing certain political content.
While the defendants denied any wrongdoing, the injunction will remain in place as lawsuit proceedings continue unless Judge Doughty or a higher court rules otherwise.
"The evidence in our case is shocking and offensive with senior federal officials deciding that they could dictate what Americans can and cannot say on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms about COVID-19, elections, criticism of the government and more," Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said in a statement.
Along with HHS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute of Allergy and Infection Diseases and HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra were barred in an injunction from urging social media companies to remove content or flagging content that would be protected as free speech.
The governmental bodies in question are not prohibited from informing social media companies about posts involving criminal activity, national security, voter suppression or threats to public safety.
They are prohibited from working with academic organizations that focus on social media, including the Election Integrity Partnership, the Virality Project and the Stanford Internet Observatory.
“Our consistent view remains that social media platforms have a critical responsibility to take account of the effects their platforms are having on the American people, but make independent choices about the information they present,” an anonymous White House official told PBS.
Early questions regarding the very nature of the COVID-19 virus quickly evolved into outright falsities, including the promotion of unproven miracle cures, in the first months of the pandemic.
The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security issued a report a year after the beginning of the pandemic urging the government to take action against misinformation, stating that distortions of the facts “can dangerously undermine the response to a public health crisis.” One method for intervention listed was to encourage social media and news companies to identify and remove false information.
The office of the U.S. Surgeon General has since listed health misinformation as one of its current priorities.
“During the pandemic, health misinformation has led people to decline vaccines, reject public health measures and use unproven treatments,” the office writes on its website. “Health misinformation has also led to harassment and violence against health workers, airline staff and other frontline workers tasked with communicating evolving public health measures.”
Healthcare professionals have begun taking to social media themselves to combat the flow of misinformation. Jessica Malaty Rivera, a research program assistant at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Health Security, worked with UNICEF to create the COVID Tracking Project. The pair used social media and podcasts to counter COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation.
YouTube prohibits content about the virus that contradicts local health authorities or the World Health Organization. The video-sharing platform includes health product features to mark when a video is created by a licensed medical professional.
TikTok has reportedly removed over 250,000 videos including COVID misinformation and worked to develop enforcement strategies. Facebook’s COVID-19 and vaccine policy includes the prohibition of content that promotes the active spread of communicable diseases.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk fired moderators enforcing the platform’s misinformation policy after he took over the company at the end of last year. The move drew concern from public health experts on and off the platform.