Friday, March 27, 2026 |
Photo – Facebook login screen – Bigfoot99 file photo
A major lawsuit from the COVID era involving the Biden administration, Missouri v. Biden, ended Wednesday in a historic settlement that bars federal agencies from pressuring social media companies to censor speech.
The case, originally brought by Missouri and other plaintiffs, alleged that the Biden White House, CDC, CISA, and the U.S. Surgeon General engaged in unconstitutional efforts to suppress online speech related to COVID-19, elections, and public health policies.
The decision prevents the federal government, including the U.S. Surgeon General, from threatening or coercing social media platforms into removing or suppressing content labeled as “misinformation,” “disinformation,” or “malinformation.”
Key figures like Senator Eric Schmitt, who led the lawsuit as Missouri’s attorney general, hailed it as a massive win for the First Amendment, citing evidence uncovered during discovery of a coordinated government campaign to silence dissenting voices, including doctors and conservative media.
The unprecedented settlement prohibits the U.S. Surgeon General, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) from threatening social media companies into removing or suppressing constitutionally protected speech on Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, and YouTube.
It also bars government authorities from directing or vetoing the companies’ social media content moderation choices.
The Trump Administration condemned the Biden-era censorship scheme in an Executive Order on President Trump’s first day back in office last year. Trump noted that the “government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate.”
The Biden Administration’s social media censorship campaign is regarded in legal circles as the most massive suppression of speech in the nation’s history.
