Washington, D.C. Court Rules NIH Violated First Amendment by Censoring Animal Rights Comments

Jul 31, 2024, 02:38 PM

A U.S. appeals court in Washington, D.C., has ruled that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) violated the First Amendment by censoring social media comments made by animal rights advocates. The court found that the NIH policy for monitoring online comments, which involved removing remarks about animal testing, infringed on free speech protections. Keywords such as 'animal,' 'mouse,' 'monkey,' 'primate,' 'torture,' 'cruel,' 'experiment,' and '#stopanimaltesting' were among those blocked by the NIH.