As a result of the lawsuit ICAN filed against CDC for blocking an individual on its official X (Twitter) account, not only did CDC unblock users, but the agency has now deleted its policy of blocking users for purported “misinformation.”
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a journalist who was blocked by CDC on X after she posted comments critical of CDC policy. We previously reported that, shortly after we filed the suit, CDC promptly unblocked her and others.
Now, CDC has notified ICAN’s attorneys that it has made significant changes to its former public comment policy. Previously, its policy allowed CDC to hide or delete comments that it felt contained “misleading or false information,” defamation, name calling, personal attacks, or spam. It also stated that “repeated violations” may “cause the author to be blocked.”
The new policy—which applies to all CDC sites, social media profiles, blogs, and applications that allow public comments—contains none of these restrictions!
ICAN is proud to have brought about this change, though this egregious violation of American’s First Amendment right to free speech should never have happened to begin with. With your support, we will continue to fight for every person’s right to exercise free speech rights, including openly criticizing the government, on any public platform.
To support future legal actions like this, click here to donate!
