A Mississippi judge on Wednesday vacated her order that a newspaper remove its editorial criticizing local officials, days after a city decided to drop the lawsuit that spurred it. The judge’s order had been widely condemned by free speech advocates as a clear violation of the paper’s First Amendment rights.

The judge’s order against The Clarksdale Press Register in Clarksdale, Miss., had alarmed press advocates, who said it was a violation of the First Amendment.

A city sued a local newspaper for libel over an editorial that was critical of the local government. A judge took the city's side and ordered the editorial scrubbed from the internet. The city backed down amid backlash,