FAUCI LIED! SAY IT AIN’T SO! Just The News is reporting that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit told the NIH that they don’t have the right to use keyword filter to block or delete social media comments that contain the words  “animal,” “testing,” or “cruel.”

Animal experimentation is at the heart of First Amendment and Freedom of Information Act litigation against the feds, with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals recently defeating NIH in court and Judicial Watch suing the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for stonewalling its requests for communications about an alleged COVID-19 coverup.

“NIH hid a comment by one of the animal-rights activists who sued as an individual, Madeline Krasno, on its Instagram post depicting a COVID-infected cell. She wrote: “It’s time we had an open conversation about all the animal testing you fund. What a waste of life and resources.”

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“The D.C. Circuit struck down NIH’s prohibition of “off-topic posts” by visitors to its Facebook and Instagram pages as implemented through “custom keyword filters” – which hid comments using NIH-chosen words, not platform-offered defaults, from the public – and instructed the lower court that upheld the speech restrictions to instead enter summary judgment for PETA.”

I know, it’s hard for me to cheer in anyway for the whack-a-doodles at PETA, but free speech and due process have to apply to whack-a-doodles, perhaps even more than anyone else. Politics and strange bedfellows, indeed.

The Good Professor and others have posted about this here, here and here.