Overview
- The consent decree approved in federal court in Louisiana bars the Surgeon General’s office, the CDC, and CISA from threatening legal, regulatory, or economic punishment to push Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, or YouTube to curb protected speech for 10 years.
- The decree also forbids those agencies from directing or vetoing companies’ content decisions and permits non-coercive contacts, with authority preserved to address crimes and national-security threats.
- The order is narrow in scope and applies to the social-media accounts of the individual plaintiffs and to posts by Missouri and Louisiana officials acting in their official roles, covering only the listed platforms.
- The government did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement and agreed not to contest that the plaintiffs are prevailing parties for the purpose of seeking attorneys’ fees.
- The case had reached the Supreme Court, which vacated earlier limits on standing grounds without deciding the First Amendment issue, and the settlement now sets operational rules that are expected to guide future government–platform interactions.