Ruling Puts Social Media at Crossroads of Disinformation and Free Speech

Two months after President Biden took office, his top digital adviser emailed officials at Facebook urging them to do more to limit the spread of “vaccine hesitancy” on the social media platform.

At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, officials held “weekly sync” meetings with Facebook, once emailing the company 16 “misinformation” posts. And in the summer of 2021, the surgeon general’s top aide repeatedly urged Google, Facebook and Twitter to do more to combat disinformation.

The examples are among dozens of interactions described in a 155-page ruling by a federal judge in Louisiana, who on Tuesday imposed temporary but far-reaching limits on how members of Mr. Biden’s administration can engage with social media companies. The government appealed the ruling on Wednesday.