Biden’s COVID censorship machine takes a hit: Missouri wins landmark ban on federal threats to Big Tech
A landmark settlement delivered a blow to the censorship industrial complex that silenced Americans during the COVID era.
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) announced Tuesday that Missouri had reached a settlement agreement with the U.S. government in its Missouri v. Biden lawsuit, which accused the Biden administration of violating Americans' First Amendment rights by directing social media companies to censor speech challenging the government's COVID messaging.
'For every working Missouri family tired of being silenced by their own government: this victory is yours.'
Schmitt filed the lawsuit against the Biden administration while serving as Missouri attorney general, before securing his Senate seat.
The agreement included a 10-year Consent Decree that enforces a narrow permanent injunction on the surgeon general, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The injunction prevents them from threatening social media companies with any form of punishment if those companies fail to remove or suppress content that contains protected speech.
However, this ban applies only to posts made on Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and YouTube by the specific plaintiffs in the case, including Missouri and Louisiana government officials and agencies acting in their official capacity. It does not extend to other social media networks or content posted by the general public.
"The Parties also agree that government, politicians, media, academics, or anyone else applying labels such as 'misinformation,' 'disinformation,' or 'malinformation' to speech does not render it constitutionally unprotected," the agreement reads.
The court must first approve this settlement agreement.
"We just won Missouri v. Biden," Schmitt wrote in a post on X. "As Missouri's Attorney General, I sued the Biden regime for brazenly colluding with Big Tech to silence Missouri families — censoring the truth about COVID, the Hunter Biden laptop, the open border, and the 2020 election. They tried to turn Facebook, X, YouTube, and the rest into their private speech police, labeling dissent 'misinformation' while they pushed their narrative on the American people."
Schmitt called the Consent Decree the "first real, operational restraint on the federal censorship machine."
He explained that it "directly binds the Surgeon General, the CDC, and CISA: no more threats of legal, regulatory, or economic punishment. No more coercion. No more unilateral direction or veto of platform decisions to remove, suppress, deplatform, or algorithmically bury protected speech."
"For every working Missouri family tired of being silenced by their own government: this victory is yours. The heartland fought back, and the heartland delivered," Schmitt concluded.
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Benjamin Weingarten, a senior contributor at the Federalist, addressed the victory's narrow application.
"This decree is limited to the plaintiffs, but as precedent, and practically, its impact may prove orders of magnitude more powerful in protecting disfavored speech," Weingarten wrote, calling it "a momentous blow for the First Amendment."
National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya, who had to withdraw as a plaintiff in the case after being appointed by the Trump administration, called the settlement "a huge win for all Americans."
"Huzzah! The consent decree in Missouri v. Biden is a historic victory for free speech in the US. Though I had to switch to the government side in the case after I became NIH director, I've never been more pleased by 'losing' in my life," he wrote.
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Settlement Stops Government From Using Social Media As ‘Speech Police’
'Biden officials at the highest levels of government tried to use Facebook, X, and YouTube as their speech police,' Sen. Eric Schmitt said.Europeans Testify On How Europe Is Banning Americans From Saying What They Believe
'European laws [are] now being exported by the European Union. ... American speech is already being affected.'Ted Cruz pelted with insane AI memes as X bans unpaid users from editing pics with Grok
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) can thank his own legislation for putting a stop to deepfakes on Grok and X.
Cruz introduced the Take It Down Act in early 2025, aimed at stopping online publication of "intimate visual depictions of individuals," both authentic and computer-generated.
'These unlawful images ... should be taken down and guardrails should be put in place.'
According to the BBC, an usual trend of asking xAI tool Grok to artificially remove people's clothing from their photos has permeated across the website and has even extended to victimizing children, according to the Guardian.
In response, X owner Elon Musk announced consequences for anyone inappropriately uploading content.
"Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content," Musk wrote.
X's safety team followed suit, saying it would take action against "illegal content," including permanently suspending accounts and working with law enforcement.
When Cruz made note of the unlawful images and praised X for addressing the issue, he was hit with a string of bizarre attempts to use Grok against him.
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"These unlawful images ... should be taken down and guardrails should be put in place," Cruz wrote.
What followed were remarks like users asking Grok to put "Ted Cruz on his knees" in front of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; in this case, Grok obliged.
Other obvious violations of the Take It Down Act included generated photos of Cruz naked, photos of body parts in his mouth, and multiple AI photos of him wearing a dress, sometimes while wearing a yarmulke.
One user even posted an AI video of Cruz saying he was upset with Tucker Carlson for not wanting to date him.
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On January 6, however, Cruz himself posted an AI-generated video regarding "Trump's Venezuela Magic," which showed President Trump making former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro magically appear onstage.
Despite others taking issue with his own usage of AI generation, Cruz's post is unlikely to be against his own drafted bill because it does not contain "intimate visual depictions."
Additionally Variety reported that X has now limited AI image editing to paid users only.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has rung alarm bells over the controversy, advocating for "all options to be on the table" in terms of legal punishment and a possible ban of the platform.
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Trump admin leaves Elon Musk's Grok, xAI off massive list of AI tech partners
Elon Musk's artificial intelligence platform has seemingly been left out of a government program to launch the technology forward.
On Monday, the White House announced a new project aimed at accelerating innovation and discovery to "solve the most challenging problems of this century."
'The Genesis Mission will bring together our Nation’s research and development resources.'
The new Genesis Mission is described by the Department of Energy as "a national initiative to build the world's most powerful scientific platform."
An executive order from the president titled "Launching the Genesis Mission" explained plans to integrate federal scientific datasets to train AI to test new hypotheses, automate research, and speed up the occurrence of scientific breakthroughs.
"The Genesis Mission will bring together our Nation’s research and development resources — combining the efforts of brilliant American scientists, including those at our national laboratories, with pioneering American businesses; world-renowned universities; and existing research infrastructure, data repositories, production plants, and national security sites — to achieve dramatic acceleration in AI development and utilization."
With Elon Musk making strides in 2025 with both the advancement of his Grok chatbot and its video generation model, Imagine, tech enthusiasts were shocked to find out that Musk's xAI was not on a list of partners for the project.
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The Department of Energy includes 55 companies on its lists of collaborators for Genesis, with xAI and Grok nowhere to be found.
Aside from the fact that Musk was a special government employee under the Trump administration, his exclusion is even more surprising given both the length and generic nature of the companies that are involved. Amazon Web Services, Google, and Microsoft were announced as partners, as were AI companies like OpenAI and Scale AI.
It should be noted that company xLight, which is listed by the DOE, is not affiliated with Musk.
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"For [xAI] to not be a part of the Genesis Mission, it is not just an oversight, it would have to be an intentional omission," AI engineer Brian Roemmele wrote on X. "I spoke to someone on this project who asked for my input today, and it is the first thing I brought up. I am certain they will see the error made."
Blaze News contacted xAI for comment but did not receive an immediate reply. This article will be updated with any applicable response.
Whether a rift exists between Musk and the Trump administration is unclear, but the government seems steadfast in believing its mission is monumental in terms of importance, likening it to the World War II nuclear arms race.
"The world's most powerful scientific platform to ever be built has launched," the DOE claimed on its X account. "This Manhattan-Project-level leap will fundamentally transform the future of American science and innovation."
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