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The D.C. Circuit Court has declared that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) violated the Constitution by using keyword filters to censor comments on its social media platforms. The court’s decision stems from a dispute involving People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which argued that their comments were unfairly targeted by NIH’s filtering system on Facebook and Instagram. This case highlights ongoing tensions between government control and free speech on digital platforms.

We obtained a copy of the order for you here.

The crux of the court’s decision hinged on three critical findings regarding the nature of the forums in question. First, the NIH’s social media accounts were determined to be limited public forums, a classification that allows for certain restrictions but not indiscriminate censorship. Second, while the NIH has the authority to curtail off-topic discussions, the court found that the agency’s keyword filters overstepped this boundary by blocking on-topic and potentially valuable contributions, particularly those from PETA on posts related to animal testing.

In delineating the scope of acceptable moderation, the court noted that NIH’s social media guidelines were intended to keep discussions relevant to the posted content. However, it criticized the agency’s keyword filters as overly broad and lacking sensitivity to the context, which, according to the court, resulted in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. Notably, NIH’s keyword list included terms directly related to animal rights activism such as “animal,” “cruel,” and even specific hashtags like “#stopanimaltesting.”

The court was particularly scathing in its assessment of the keyword strategy, labeling the approach as not only unreasonable but also inflexible and disconnected from the nuances of real discussions. This misstep, according to the court, skewed the public discourse significantly against PETA’s viewpoint, disrupting a fair and balanced dialogue about NIH-funded activities.

The implications of this ruling are profound. The court’s decision could push government agencies to either significantly improve how they manage social media interactions or retreat from interactive engagements altogether, perhaps choosing to use their platforms solely for broadcasting information without allowing public feedback. This potential shift could have chilling effects on public discourse, particularly in digital spaces typically viewed as democratic venues for diverse opinions and debates.

The outcome is a clear victory for PETA, securing both the validation of their claims and a precedent that may deter future governmental overreach in social media moderation.

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US House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on August 1 requested documents from more than 40 companies that are members of the controversial, powerful advertising initiative, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM).

The Committee has long had GARM (set up by the World Federation of Advertisers, WFA) in its sights in the context of a broader investigation into the government colluding with tech companies, but also other corporations, to censor online speech.

In this case, GARM is suspected of getting the world’s biggest brands to effectively demonetize, by withholding ads, various platforms, podcasts, news sites, “and other content that GARM and its members deem disfavored,” Committee Chairman Jim Jordan writes in his letter sent to dozens of GARM members.

We obtained a copy of the letters for you here.

GARM’s official purpose is to provide brand safety to its clients (and theirs amounts to some 90% of marketing spending globally) – but Jordan says that this WFA initiative (with ties to the World Economic Forum, WEF) has significantly deviated from that goal.

Instead, it has “collectively used its immense market power to demonetize voices and viewpoints the group disagrees with – even intervening in situations that do not have a so-called ‘brand safety’ concern,” Jordan writes.

Among those who received the letter are Electronic Arts, Red Bull, McDonalds, General Motors, Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Verizon, Volvo, American Express, Chanel, CVS, Pepsi, Adidas, Nike, IKEA, Sony, Shell – and that’s just a third of the corporations listed, but it gives a clear idea of the power GARM, as their “brand safety umbrella,” has to make or break any entity “disfavored” for their speech.

Jordan informed these corporations that the committee he chairs “has learned that collusive activity is occurring within the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, of which your company is a member.”

That activity included boycotting sites, podcasts, etc., that GARM decided should be excluded from the members’ marketing spending. Among those that were allegedly targeted in this way are conservative media outlets like Daily Wire and Fox News, but also Joe Rogan’s podcast.

A WFA spokesperson denied that GARM was involved in “operational steps relative to monetization eligibility” nor things like content ratings, platforms assessments – “or media investment decisions.”

But a recent Judiciary Committee interim report said that GARM head Rob Rakowitz was influencing members to make their decisions based on what “fact-checkers” like Global Disinformation Index (GDI) and NewsGuard had to tell them.

These are considered “left-leaning” while those who suffered “censorship through demonetization” are entities considered conservative or libertarian.

Famously, one of them was Twitter – as soon as Elon Musk acquired it, that is.

The post House Probes Major Businesses for Censorship Collusion With GARM’s Alleged Ad “Cartel” appeared first on Reclaim The Net.