{"id":767705,"date":"2022-04-05T07:10:37","date_gmt":"2022-04-05T11:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=767705"},"modified":"2022-04-05T07:49:25","modified_gmt":"2022-04-05T11:49:25","slug":"animal-rights-group-blasts-u-s-government-for-suppressing-social-media-posts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=767705","title":{"rendered":"WHERE CRUELTY ‘LIES’: Animal rights group blasts U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH) for suppressing social media posts"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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The NIH keyword blocking is being used to hide comments containing any of two dozen words and phrases closely associated with animal advocacy, such as: PETA, Torture, Hurt, Monkey, and Primate, among others.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\n

WENDY DAVIS:<\/strong> Animal rights activists are urging a federal judge to rule that the National Institutes of Health unconstitutionally blocks posts on Facebook and Instagram based on keywords associated with criticism of animal experimentation.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThis case involves a government agency\u2019s patently unconstitutional practice of surreptitiously censoring speech it does not like — speech that is critical of the agency — in public forums,\u201d the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Madeline Krasno and Ryan Hartkopf argue in papers filed Friday with U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C.<\/em><\/p>\n

The dispute dates to last September, when the activists claimed in a lawsuit that the federal agency violated the First Amendment by blocking critical posts on the National Institutes of Health’s social media pages. The advocates are seeking a declaration that the keyword blocks are unconstitutional, and a court order requiring the agencies to remove the filters. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and others are now asking a judge to rule in their favor…<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe agency\u2019s keyword blocking has been used to hide comments containing any of two dozen words and phrases closely associated with animal advocacy — words like ‘PETA,’ ‘torture,’ ‘hurt,’ ‘monkey,’ and ‘primate’ — and to this day still hides comments containing almost all of these words and phrases,\u201d the activists argue in Friday’s filing. (Last December, three months after the activists sued, the agency removed ‘PETA’ and the keywords ‘#stopanimaltesting,’ ‘stoptesting,’ and ‘#stoptestingonanimals,’\u201d from its blocklist, according to court documents.) \u201cThis viewpoint- and content-based keyword blocking is unconstitutional,\u201d the animal rights group adds…<\/em><\/p>\n

The National Institutes of Health argued in court papers that it \u201cbelieves that off-topic and inflammatory comments undermine its goals in operating its social media pages”… But the activists say blocking speech merely because it is \u201cinflammatory\u201d is a form of viewpoint discrimination that violates the First Amendment. They add that the agency’s prohibitions on inflammatory as well as off-topic speech \u201care underinclusive, overinclusive, and susceptible to biased and discriminatory application.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The filing notes that the agency allows people to make off-topic comments, as long as they are not related to animal-rights advocacy. \u201cThe NIH does not routinely remove, much less suppress in advance, comments that violate its off-topic rule but that do not contain the blocked keywords,\u201d the activists write. For instance, they say, a web user was allowed to ask a question about the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine in a comment to a post about research regarding adopted children. The government is expected to respond to the argument by May 6. SOURCE…<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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