Supreme Court justices appeared split on the question of whether it’s a problem if the White House ever puts pressure on social media companies to take down certain content.

During oral arguments in Murthy v. Missouri, a case that will determine how far social media companies can go to combat controversial or inaccurate social media posts, questions about posts relating to COVID-19 were expanded to include hypothetical instances of doxxing government officials and challenges for children to jump out of windows.

While justices moved farther afield in their analysis during oral arguments, here are some of the posts that sparked a backlash toward the Biden administration for trying to censor content online.

Louisiana Department of Justice blocked by YouTube for sharing video of citizen concerns

In August 2021, the Louisiana Department of Justice posted a YouTube video in which citizens came to the Louisiana state Capitol to voice their opinions about the state’s handling of COVID-19 guidelines. YouTube removed the video from its platform and said an additional strike would lead to a one-week suspension from the platform. 

“YouTube does not allow content that spreads medical misinformation that contradicts local health authorities or the World Health Organization (WHO) medical information about COVID-19,” the notice from YouTube to the Louisiana DOJ read.

The communications officer for the Louisiana DOJ argued that blocking posts expressing citizen concerns “directly interferes” with the Louisiana DOJ’s ability to serve its state. 

Government oversight during the COVID-19 pandemic faced numerous community warnings from Facebook

Jill Hines of Health Freedom Louisiana launched an organization, Reopen Louisiana, to document concerns about government outreach during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Hines claims that Facebook censored her organization in October 2020 when the page was gaining 1.4 million views by “fact checkers” and “warnings.” After Facebook censored the page, it averaged 98,000 views. One post, which was a call to action for Louisianians to testify against a bill that would create an employee mandate for the vaccine, was given a “community standards” warning by Facebook. Hines said she was barred from posting on her personal account for 24 hours afterward.

She said she was completely restricted from using the platform for 30 days in January 2022. 

A personal Twitter account banned for spreading potentially harmful information

In 2022, Micheal Senger said he was permanently banned from Twitter, now X, which he claims was out of the ordinary for the platform’s normal suspension route. 

In October 2020, Senger received his first suspension for 12 hours after posting, “so the FDA granted an emergency use authorization to give kids mRNA vaccines, with unknown risks, for a virus that accounts for significantly fewer than 1% of deaths in that age group? Where is the ’emergency?’” 

In March 2022, his account was permanently suspended for violating Twitter rules by “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19.” The post in question was commentary from an article titled “How Did This Many Deaths Become Normal?”

“How did this many ‘deaths’ become normal? Because, though they may not yet be willing to face it, the vast majority have realized that every COVID policy — from the lockdowns and masks to the tests, death coding, and vaccine passes — has been one, giant fraud,” Senger wrote. 

A journalist’s work labeled as ‘misinformation’

Jessica Baumgartner, Missouri resident and freelance reporter, said an article of hers was classified by Facebook as “misinformation.”

In July 2021, Baumgartner wrote a story for the Epoch Times titled “Nurse Blows the Whistle on the Medical Industry: ‘They’re Not Offering Informed Consent,’” which went viral on Facebook before being labeled as misinformative.

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She said she wrote a later story for the Federalist titled “What I Saw When I Met the U.S. Truckers’ Convoy In Missouri.” She said when her friends and family tried to share the story on social media, they were barred from doing so. 

Baumgartner also said her personal posts on X were flagged, resulting in her being locked out of her account, after she shared “alternative COVID-19 treatments, mentioning the fact that masks have caused some developmental and health issues in children, and mentioning that I am healthy even though I have not received the COVID-19 vaccine.”