U.S. Judge Rules Free Speech Violated by Biden Administration Using Evidence From Before They Took Office ⇥ arstechnica.com

Mike Masnick, writing at Techdirt last May:

This one is just absolutely bizarre. The Attorneys General of Missouri and Louisiana are now suing President Joe Biden and a whole bunch of his administration, including press secretary Jen Psaki, Dr. Anthony Fauci, DHS boss Alejandro Mayorkas, and newly appointed Disinfo czar Nina Jankowicz, in a nearly incomprehensible complaint that the Biden administration forced social media sites to take down information, mostly before it was in office. Also, apparently Section 230 is both bad and the Biden support for repealing it violates the 1st Amendment. Or something. It really does not make much sense at all.

This suit was updated this year to reflect some changes in the Biden administration. Notably, the amended complaint retains core features of the original — namely, that moderation actions taken against a couple of New York Post stories about files obtained from a laptop formerly belonging to Hunter Biden, various COVID-19 posts, and 2020 election posts are evidence of state censorship by this administration. The suit does not meaningfully reconcile how actions taken by officials from the Trump administration before the 2020 election are somehow the fault of the Biden administration.

Masnick’s explanation is worth reading because of today’s update in the case.

Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica:

A federal judge yesterday ordered the Biden administration to halt a wide range of communications with social media companies, siding with Missouri and Louisiana in a lawsuit that alleges Biden and his administration violated the First Amendment by colluding with social networks “to suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content.”

This comes just a few months after a judge ruled in a broadly similar case that state officials flagging posts is not a First Amendment violation.