CENSORS, STALINISTS, PATERNALISTS, FAUX-LIBERALS, AND OTHERS WHO WOULD SUPRESS FREE SPEECH: YOU’RE ON NOTICE. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on March 18 in Missouri’s lawsuit alleging the federal government colluded with social media companies like Twitter and Facebook to suppress conservative and libertarians’ freedom of speech. And a lot of us are watching.
The Missouri Independent, explains the matter before the court, about which I and my fellow Insta-team members have written before:
“The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans prohibited the White House, the Surgeon General’s Office, the F.B.I., and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from having practically any contact with the social media companies. It found that the Biden administration most likely overstepped the First Amendment by urging the major social media platforms to remove misleading or false content […]
“A central dimension of presidential power,” the administration argues, “is the use of the office’s bully pulpit to seek to persuade Americans — and American companies — to act in ways that the president believes would advance the public interest.”
But the bully pulpit, Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general wrote, “is not a pulpit to bully.”
Sadly, the outlet totally ignores the text of the 5th Circuit’s opinion, because, well, I think they’re kind of biased. Most reporters (and I have a lot of experience here) have been for too long living in a paternalist bubble. They know more than you do. They are inherently smarter than you. You work with your hands (Ugh). They know what’s better for you. “Shut up, serf!”
And to digress a bit, here’s where I find faux-liberal paternalism to be a form of fascism: To assert your view to the exclusion of others is a violation of others’ moral autonomy, in my mind, a core human right. In short, exactly what Stalin did. But that’s for another time.
But here’s what we know for a fact: The Fifth Circuit said:
“We find that the White House, acting in concert with the Surgeon General’s office, likely (1) coerced the platforms to make their moderation decisions by way of intimidating messages and threats of adverse consequences, and (2) significantly encouraged the platforms’ decisions by commandeering their decision-making processes, both in violation of the First Amendment.”
In the oral arguments on that case, one judge asked the government lawyers whether the tone of the government was not like that of mob bosses in the movies: “Nice social media platform you have there. A shame if anything were to happen to it.”
Golly, where have we heard that before?
Spread the word to those faux-liberals who hide behind the chimera of “suppressing disinformation to save democracy” or other gibberish: we are watching. And fighting back.
