NIH Hid Public Comments Package — page 60

/OD) [E] > /OD) [E] Lankford, nate (NIH/OD) [E] limeni, Lydia I see a #stoptestingonanimals on the December 3rd post about the POTUS briefing and on the December 3rd post about the placenta image. I also see a #stopanimaltesting on the November 19th post on Marsha's Alzheimer's Caregiver story. Essentially, your statement about the lawsuit is accurate, but only for moderating off topic animal testing comments. The lawsuit is about the animal-related keyword filters. To not fight the lawsuit, NIH would have to stop all animal-related keyword filters to appease the plaintiffs to drop the suit. Since manual hiding is not at issue in the lawsuit, NIH would have full discretion to do manual hiding. However, if NIH instead of using the keyword filters manually hid comments each day, it is likely plaintiffs would pick up on their comments being hidden and file another lawsuit about the hiding. So, in my opinion, I don't see the benefit of attempting to moderate the animal testing comments through another hiding mechanism, since it will likely just end up in another lawsuit as soon as plaintiffs notice their comments are hidden. If you see any other angle of how off-topic animal testing comments could be moderated without alarming the plaintiffs to want to file another lawsuit, then I'm happy to discuss. Therefore, for NIH to continue moderating off-topic animal testing relating comments, it seems the only option is to defend NIH's practices through the lawsuit, and if NIH wins then it can continue as-is and have discretion to filter viewpoint-neutral animal-related keywords and conduct manual hiding, etc. If NIH doesn't win, then NIH would not be able to moderate off-topic animal testing comments. The scope of an injunction would only apply to the animal testing keyword filters at issue. NIH would be able to continue to moderate off topic comments for subject matters outside of animals. Thank you, Sarah J. Imhoff, JD, MHSA Senior Attorney Office of the General Counsel Public Health Division, NIH Branch (direct) @nih.gov This e-mail message is intended for the exclusive use of the recipient(s) named above. It may contain information that is protected, privileged, or confidential, and it should not be disseminated, distributed, or copied to persons not authorized to receive such information. If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, distribution, or copying is strictly prohibited. If you think you have received this e-mail message in error, please notify the sender immediately. From: Fine, Amanda (NIH/OD) [E] < @nih.gov> Sent: Wednesday, December 8, 2021 8:57 PM To: Imhoff, Sarah (NIH/OD) [E] < @nih.gov>; Kern, Anna (NIH/OD) [E] < @nih.gov> Cc: Spruill, Crystal (NIH/OD) [C] < @nih.gov>; Prince, Scott (NIH/OD) [E] < @nih.gov>; Lankford, David (NIH/OD) [E] < @od31tm1.od.nih.gov>; Myles, Renate (NIH/OD) [E] < @mail.nih.gov>; Polimeni, Lydia (NIH/OD) [E] < @nih.gov> Subject: RE: PETA Lawsuit Update and Requests for Information Hi Sarah- So sorry for writing late. Crazy week for us! A call would be great, but we have another crazy day tomorrow and the best time that will work is 12:30-1pm. Will that work for you all as well? I'm attaching our responses to your comments in the stipulations document. I've included the answers to your questions below (highlighted). To answer your question about the key policy decision maker: that would be Renate. In terms of who has the most information to talk through the stipulation--that would be all of the OCPL people on this email. We each have different pieces of the information. My take away from the below explanation is that if we want to continue to moderate off topic comments on Facebook and Instagram, then we must decide to fight the lawsuit, and only if we win, then we could continue to do so. Is that accurate?