Attorney General Bonta Joins Multistate Amicus Brief Supporting Federal Government in Missouri v. Biden

OAKLAND – As part of a coalition of 21 attorneys general, California Attorney General Rob Bonta joined an amicus brief supporting the federal government’s appeal of a preliminary injunction that broadly prohibits it from communicating with social media platforms about the companies’ content-moderation practices and decisions. The injunction, issued on July 4, 2023 by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, effectively bars the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Surgeon General of the United States, and numerous other federal agencies and officials from contacting social media companies about posts and other content that, in their view, is false, misleading, or harmful. The appeal, Missouri v. Biden, is currently pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

“This injunction treats virtually any government outreach to social media platforms as coercive and unconstitutional," said Attorney General Bonta. "Instead of protecting free speech, the district court’s order severely restricts the flow of public information by preventing large swaths of the federal government from expressing its views on a wide range of matters of vital public importance." 

In their amicus brief, the attorneys general explain that: 

• State governments frequently share their expertise with social media companies to serve the interests of public safety and consumer protection.
• Such efforts assist private companies in making informed decisions about content moderation without coercion, and help safeguard the public interest. For example, such information-sharing by state governments led Meta to decide against releasing a version of Instagram intended for use by children under 13, and helped Twitch to identify and remove harmful content such as live video recordings of a racially motivated mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York supermarket. 

In filing the amicus brief, Attorney General Bonta joins the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

A copy of the amicus brief is available here.