A judge has blocked the Biden administration and other federal officials from communicating with social media companies in a case that could have far-reaching consequences for the country…
The two Republican lawyers [state attorneys general in Louisiana and Missour] sued [Biden, Fauci, Murthy and more], accusing them of:
Colluding with Meta, Twitter and YouTube to remove “truthful information” related to the COVID-19 lab leak theory, 2020 election and other topics.
Trump-appointed judge granted the state attourneys a temporary injunction against the federal government. Doughty wrote in his order that:
The Republican attorneys general “produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content.
And they’re going to show us this evidence right?..right?
What are you, some kind of communist? Of course not. They said it exists. That’s enough.
Is this evidence in the room with us right now?
Long story short, this judge thinks lying to the public about a pandemic, during a pandemic, is protected speech.
Well… Yes, it probably is. Because it’s political speech, and because there’s not a direct link to fraud or causal harm. See US v. Alvarez, 617 F. 3d 1198. When Trump says that he’s a stable genius, that’s protected speech even though 180 degrees opposed to the truth.
You’ll notice that e.g. what Trump’s attorneys said in public was very, very different from what they said to courts; it’s a criminal offense to lie to courts, but it’s largely legal and protected to lie to the public for political ends.
I hate that I agree with this. On the one hand, “lying about a pandemic during a pandemic” sure sounds a lot like “shouting fire in a crowded theater,” but things like the lab leak theory aren’t really a matter of public health. While there are times when the government can and should fight dangerous misinformation, this is the kind of executive power that needs to be kept in check by the courts for the executive’s own good.
Calling disinformation about a global pandemic political speech sure is something.
That’s one of the consequences of the damage that the Trump presidency did to the US that will haunt the country for the decades to come.
Conservative opinions and comments are always inappropriate. Always. Every word uttered by a conservative is deception, manipulation, or dog-whistling some form of hate. Every single utterance.
Conservatism is inappropriate to publish. We should be moving to extinguish the plague of hatred and anti-science idiocy rather than defending it as “free speech”. Conservative speech is hate speech and should never be treated as free speech.
I’d like to know more details about the nature of the contacts. If the WH told a social media platform that they must remove some content “or else,” that could be problematic for me. But if it was “Hey, we think this story is false and you should delete it” (said to a private entity), I don’t see what the issue is.
So that means Trump can’t contact Truth Social & DeSantis can’t contact Twitter if we fuck up & elect another fascist, right?
