A federal appeals court has handed the Biden administration a temporary victory by agreeing to put a temporary hold on an earlier district court’s ruling that prohibited a range of federal agencies and their staff from contacting social media companies with requests to censor constitutionally protected free speech.
On Friday, a three-judge panel for the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans issued a decision granting the Biden administration’s request to put the censorship-by-proxy ban on hold.
The “temporary administrative stay” will be in place until the case is referred to a different appeals panel, which will deliberate on the merits of a ruling that barred Biden administration officials from pressuring social media companies to censor free speech….