Schmitt Celebrates Historic First Amendment Victory in Landmark Missouri V. Biden Case

Settlement Concludes Federal Government Censored Americans’ Protected Speech

U.S. SENATE — U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) today released the following statement after the landmark Missouri v. Biden lawsuit Schmitt brought as Missouri Attorney General reached a settlement and Consent Decree. In a huge win for First Amendment rights, the settlement prohibits the U.S. Surgeon General, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) from pressuring social media platforms into censoring constitutionally protected speech. It also prevents federal officials from interfering with how social media companies make their content moderation decisions.

“This is a massive win for the First Amendment and for every American who believes in free speech,” said Senator Schmitt. “Under Biden, we saw the most aggressively liberal and antiliberty excesses of government that America has ever seen, and as AG I sued the Administration for brazenly colluding with Big Tech to silence Missourians. From COVID to Hunter Biden’s laptop to the border, Biden officials at the highest levels of government tried to use Facebook, X, and YouTube as their speech police. But no longer. This decision locks in Americans’ First Amendment rights, and guarantees that even in the digital age, the federal government cannot deplatform protected speech they simply disagree with. Missouri struck first, and we won big. For every American who is tired of being silenced by your own government—this victory is yours.”

The settlement resolves all remaining claims in the case through a consent decree rather than continued litigation. In it, the government agrees to a 10-year, court-enforceable injunction barring the Surgeon General, CDC, and CISA from threatening major social media platforms with legal, regulatory, or economic punishment to induce the removal, suppression, or algorithmic reduction of plaintiffs’ protected speech.

This settlement imposes the first concrete, operational limits on how certain federal officials may engage with social media platforms on protected speech. It reinforces the First Amendment principle that constitutional protections apply in the digital age and are not lost simply because the government labels speech as misinformation or disinformation. It also marks a meaningful constraint on the government’s future conduct in this area.

Background:

• Schmitt filed Missouri v. Biden in 2022 when he was serving as Missouri’s Attorney General, alleging a “vast censorship enterprise” between the federal government and social media companies to censor speech online.
• As a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, Schmitt frequently discusses the Biden Administration’s pervasive efforts to deplatform users they disagreed with and pressure social media companies to remove content.
• Schmitt introduced the COLLUDE Act, which would strip Section 230 protections from social media companies that censor speech at the behest of government actors.
• Schmitt also introduced the Censorship Accountability Act, which would allow private citizens to sue federal government officials if they censor their speech online.

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