Attribution to Cezary (top picture) Matt Wade (bottom picture)

This is another one of those stranger than fiction chirps.

A lawsuit was filed by the attorneys General of the states of Missouri and Louisiana, back in 2022. Here is where we go into Twilight Zone territory. The lawsuit alleged that the Biden administration was going too far in combatting Covid-19 disinformation. Oookay! Should be easily dismissed, right? US District Judge Terry Doughty, who is a Trump appointee, issued a preliminary injunction, yesterday, on Independence Day, forbidding a number of federal agencies, and top officials, from communicating with social media companies about taking down ‘content containing protected free speech’. This injunction applies to a number of Health departments and agencies, as well as the DOJ and FBI.

Doughty stated that these agencies and officials are prohibited from,

“specifically flagging content or posts on social-media platforms and/or forwarding such to social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

So, as of now, any right-wing extremist wing-nut, can spew out any rabble rousing conspiracy garbage that he/she wants and nothing can be done about it. Think of it, a lawsuit against fighting disinformation. In a sense, it should not be surprising given that Trump and Fox Entertainment have been spewing out garbage for years, without consequences. Though Fox did pay nearly a billion dollars to Dominion, so there have been some consequences. Maybe that is the way to fight back, to sue those spreading disinformation.

The Biden administration indicated that they are reviewing the Judge’s decision. I am thinking there will be an appeal.