The Biden Admin's socmed company communication restriction was expanded by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The injunction was issued in September to prevent the Biden Administration, FBI, and other governmental agencies from communicating with social media platforms.
This time, the injunction's expansion includes the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Here's what the 5th Circuit judges explained.
Biden Admin SocMed Company Communication Restriction Now Includes CISA
According to USA Today's latest report, CISA is now facing an injunction imposed against the the Biden Administration because the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals believes that the cybersecurity agency likely violated the First Amendment of Silicon Valley firms.
However, it looks like CISA's case is more serious than other governmental agencies. The three judges, who were nominated by Republican presidents, said that the cybersecurity watchdog coerces social media companies.
"CISA used its frequent interactions with social media platforms to push them to adopt more restrictive policies on censoring election-related speech," said the judges via CNN Business.
"The platforms' censorship decisions were made under policies that CISA has pressured them into adopting and based on CISA's determination of the veracity of the flagged information," they added.
On Tuesday, Oct. 3, the 5th Circuit judges ruled that CISA facilitated the interaction between FBI and Silicon Valley firms. Now, the injunction expansion bans CISA, as well as the agency's top officials, including Director Jen Easterly.
The injuction bans them from communicating with tech companies. This means that they can't order Meta and other socmed firms to take down or curtail the spread of online posts.
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CISA's Executive Director Defends Agency
CISA said that it doesn't want to comment regarding the ongoing litigation. Although this is the case, the watchdog's Executive Director Brandon Wales still defended the agency against allegations.
Waes said that the cybersecurity watchdog doesn't censor speech or facilitate censorship in any way. However, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey rejects this claim.
He said that CISA is the "nerve center" of the vast censorship enterprise. Bailey added that this can be seen when CISA worked with the FBI to silence the Hunter Biden laptop story.
As of writing, the 5th Circuit judges said that they were pausing the new injunction within 10 days so that the Biden Administration could ask the Supreme Court to issue a more lasting pause on the modified ruling.
