The U.S. Supreme Court today put a temporary block on a lower court order that limited the Biden administration’s contact with social media companies.

The original order was put in place to prevent the administration from applying pressure on such companies to moderate what it considered possible misinformation. It had earlier been discovered that the White House had exerted its influence on those companies in regard to COVID-19 and other polarizing issues. The administration has said it was necessary to combat misinformation, while conservatives have argued that it was censorship that suppressed valuable information.

Last week, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the White House, the Surgeon General’s office, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI had gone too far during the pandemic when they were able to control to some extent what social media companies allowed on their platforms.

The court said such speech was protected by the First Amendment. This came after a July 4 ruling from a federal judge in north Louisiana that effectively blocked government agencies from meddling in the moderation processes of companies such as X Corp., formerly Twitter, and Meta Platform Inc.’s Facebook platform.

The Biden Administration later called for the Supreme Court to issue a stay on the order, arguing that the government had every right to protect the American people from dubious information.

“This administration has promoted responsible actions to protect public health, safety, and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our elections,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement. “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.”

The argument the other way expresses that in some cases, such as the effectiveness of masks or lockdowns, the issues were never settled, and the conversation about such issues should not be suppressed. U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty went as far as to call such censorship “similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’” The Biden administration counter-argued that there are times when the government needs to intervene.

“Of course, the government cannot punish people for expressing different views,” said the White House. “Nor can it threaten to punish the media or other intermediaries for disseminating disfavored speech. But there is a fundamental distinction between persuasion and coercion.”

In what is turning out to be a landmark case regarding the limits of free speech, the stay today will be extended until Monday next week. The government will later submit its petition for Supreme Court consideration on Oct. 13.

Photo: Ian Hutchinson/Unsplash