First Amendment

A Lawsuit Settlement Highlights Trump's Hypocrisy on Government Meddling With Social Media

Despite its rejection of the Biden administration's interference, the Trump administration is still asserting authority over online speech.

Jacob Sullum | 3.25.2026 3:40 PM

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On Tuesday, the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) announced that it had reached a settlement in Missouri v. Biden, a First Amendment lawsuit challenging the federal government's attempts to suppress "misinformation" on social media. Under the proposed consent decree, which still needs the approval of U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, the surgeon general, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency will be barred from threatening to punish social media companies for declining to remove or reduce the visibility of "content containing protected free speech."

The lawsuit, which resulted in rulings against the government by Doughty and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit before the Supreme Court concluded that the plaintiffs had not shown they had standing to seek injunctive relief, was provoked by the Biden administration's campaign against online speech it viewed as a threat to public health, democracy, or national security. Given President Donald Trump's criticism of his predecessor's social media meddling, it is not surprising that the current administration was willing to settle the case. But that does not mean the Trump administration is prepared to respect the First Amendment right of social media companies to decide which content they want to host or promote, free from the government's coercive influence.

To the contrary, federal officials still think they have a role in shaping online speech, which they nonsensically portray as an effort to vindicate First Amendment rights. Instead of demanding the suppression of disfavored speech, they insist that social media platforms are obliged, in the name of fairness and balance, to host content they otherwise would be inclined to reject. Although such intervention serves a different political agenda, it is no less objectionable than the Biden administration's crusade against speech it deemed dangerous.

The settlement involves the two remaining plaintiffs in Missouri v. Biden: health care activist Jill Hines and psychiatrist Aaron Kheriaty, both of whom complained that they had suffered from government-inspired restrictions on speech related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The original plaintiffs also included Jay Bhattacharya, a physician and health economist who is now director of the National Institutes of Health, and Martin Kulldorff, a biostatistician and epidemiologist who also took a job in the Department of Health and Human Services last year. Bhattacharya and Kulldorff, both of whom criticized lockdowns and vaccine mandates during the pandemic, withdrew from Missouri v. Biden because of their new government positions.

The plaintiffs complained that government bullying of social media platforms had transformed what were ostensibly private content moderation decisions into censorship by proxy. By pressuring the platforms to suppress........

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