In a victory for free speech, Elon Musk’s X has prevailed against another Biden-era censorship initiative.
X Global Government Affairs announced its most recent judicial victory on Tuesday: “In a victory for transparency and free speech, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has unanimously ruled in X’s favor to limit the U.S. government’s ability to issue gag orders. These gag orders prevent X from notifying the public when it receives government search warrants and subpoenas.” Musk celebrated the appeals court ruling, adding, “Protecting your freedom of speech.”
This decision reverses one of the 57 Biden censorship initiatives detailed in MRC’s bombshell report. Initiative 24 exposed the gag orders the Biden administration placed on Big Tech companies to prevent them from disclosing the administration’s invasive data and censorship requests.
X further explained in its announcement that the federal government last year requested personal data on FBI whistleblowers Kyle Seraphin and Garret O’Boyle, then issued a gag order requiring this request to be kept secret.
“Following their whistleblowing activities, Seraphin and O’[B]oyle were fired from their jobs and subject to a criminal investigation, suggesting retaliation by the government,” X wrote in its post. “Yet when X wanted to transparently disclose the government’s subpoena to the public, it could not do so because the government had obtained a gag order.” X challenged the Biden administration in court on First Amendment grounds and just won the case in the D.C. Court of Appeals.
As MRC previously highlighted in its report, in January 2024, Biden’s Department of Justice ordered X (formerly Twitter) during the 2024 campaign cycle not to tell users when the Office of Special Prosecutor Jack Smith was reading their subpoenaed private messages. X sued, but the U.S. Supreme Court originally sided with Smith’s office. The appeals court has now issued the decision X was seeking.
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