“…inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”
The First Amendment’s position on freedom of speech is pretty clear. The Obama and Biden administrations however decided that while freedom of speech bars them from directly censoring political opponents, it didn’t stop them from asking, rather than ordering by decree, private companies to censor on their behalf.
The idea that the government could just bypass the Bill of Rights by asking private companies to do it for them was never legally tenable. And now it’s in trouble.
A federal court in Louisiana on Tuesday barred parts of the Biden administration from communicating with social media platforms about broad swaths of content online, a ruling that could curtail efforts to combat false and misleading narratives about the coronavirus pandemic and other issues.
In the ruling, Judge Terry A. Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana said that parts of the government, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, could not talk to social media companies for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”
Judge Doughty said in granting a preliminary injunction that the agencies could not flag specific posts to the social media platforms or requests reports about their efforts to take down content. The ruling said that the government could still notify the platforms about posts detailing crimes, national security threats or foreign attempts to influence elections
The government can handle areas that are its legitimate responsibility, but it can’t ask companies to do things for it that it could not do for itself.
This is simply common sense.
If the federal government directly censoring materials would fall afoul of the First Amendment, so would asking Facebook or Twitter to do it for them.
We’ve seen this game being played out for a while already. The DOJ, the FBI or even White House staffers forward materials to top Big Tech executives while being warned that they’re in danger.
A White House official said the Justice Department “is reviewing the court’s injunction and will evaluate its options in this case.”
“This Administration has promoted responsible actions to protect public health, safety, and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our elections,” the official said. “Our consistent view remains that social media platforms have a critical responsibility to take account of the effects their platforms are having on the American people, but make independent choices about the information they present.”
And the best way to do that is to end the censorship.
Article posted with permission from Daniel Greenfield
