WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – The Biden administration filed its intention to appeal this week of a federal judge’s order to stop conversing with social media companies about content censorship decisions. 

On Tuesday, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisian Judge Terry Doughty issued a temporary injunction against Biden, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and various cabinet secretaries and other federal officials from communicating with tech companies for the purpose of encouraging the suppression of specific user content on their platforms.

The next day, the U.S. State Department reportedly canceled its regular meeting with Facebook to discuss “preparations” for the 2024 elections “pending further guidance,” with the expectation that other agencies were doing the same.

Also on Wednesday, the U.S. Justice Department filed a notice of appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, UPI reported.

In a statement, the White House framed its now-prohibited activities as “actions to protect public health, safety and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our elections,” declaring 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.”

The case was spearheaded by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and former Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who say they have documents indicating that “dozens of federal officials across at least 11 federal agencies,” including DHS and the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), were involved in a “massive, sprawling federal ‘Censorship Enterprise’” with the “intent and effect of pressuring social-media platforms to censor and suppress private speech that federal officials disfavor.”

In July 2021, LifeSiteNews reported on Biden declaring that Facebook was “killing people” by not censoring more COVID “misinformation” and former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki acknowledging that the administration had been “flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.”

In another case currently pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) is representing Mark Changizi, Michael Singer, and Daniel Kotzin, whose were suspended over tweets at odds with what at the time was the establishment view of the COVID-19 pandemic. They contend that Twitter was not merely exercising discretion over the use of its platform but rather acting in response to calls by government officials to quash dissenting COVID views, and particularly threats of new federal regulations if platforms did not take action on their own.

Current Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who took up the state’s side of the case when Schmitt left office to represent Missouri in the U.S. Senate, responded with incredulity to Biden’s appeal: “I think we’ve seen it all.”