THERE’S WRONG, AND THEN THERE’S INSANELY WRONG: Roy S. Gutterman, a professor at Syracuse University and a self-professed expert in “free speech” published an Op/Ed piece on (where else?) CNN that misreads the remarkable victory handed to free-thinkers — especially in on-line forums — by Louisiana Federal District Judge Terry Doughty.
Doughty’s judicial opinion is the first to recognize that yes, the Biden Administration has been in bed with BigTech to directly, clearly and unambiguously censor or demonetize conservative speech, or speech that represents a threat to the preferred narrative. And you can bet your boots that a lot of the pro-censorship lefties are nervous. Very nervous.
The most glaring “nothing to see here” on Prof. Gutterman’s part is his glossing over and minimizing a key element:
“[C]riticism by government officials and gentle requests to take down content — absent concrete administrative or prosecutorial action — goes far short of censorship.”
“Gentle requests?” Who does he think he’s kidding? Nice media platform you got there. It would be a shame if something happened to it.
And oh, what a shocker! Gutterman appeals to emotion and that good old sawhorse “saving Democracy from misinformation”:
The complaint cites occasions when the Biden administration threatened to take antitrust action against the companies over misinformation about Covid-19, vaccines and elections or undo Section 230, a legal shield that protects tech giants from lawsuits. This also falls short of actual censorship. [Empasis added].
So let’s see if we have this right: There is no censorship, and no threat of censorship, but when the government does take or threaten to take action over what they call misinformation, “this also falls short of actual censorship.”
Anybody else see the circular logic being employed here?