During oral arguments in a major First Amendment case on Monday, the Supreme Court expressed reservations about restricting interactions between the Biden administration and social media platforms. This concern emerged during the Murthy v. Missouri (formerly Missouri v. Biden) case, which delves into the extent of governmental influence over online content.
The Biden Administration has said explicitly that it used its over-weening power to seek to squelch “harmful content” on Social Media platforms. It has as much as said that it practiced censorship “for our own good”. There is no more unequal power relationship than between a private company and the Federal government that has the literal power of life and death over it. Or have people forgotten the bi-partisan death sentence against TikTok? I bet the CEOs of Social Media companies have not forgotten.
The opinions seem to just assume that “harmful content”, “misinformation”, “disinformation”, “malinformation” and the like are well defined and that matters of objective law. They of course are not. Has the claims of misinformation against Wohan lab origin of COVID that turned out to be true been forgotten? Has the “misinformation” of claims of masks doing no real good which the CDC has repudiated been forgotten? Have the claims of the Hunter Biden laptop story being “Russian propaganda” which turned out to be false been forgotten? Do we need more evidence that having government decree what is true or false is fraught with peril?
What is wrong with letting the people, each and every individual of them, decide for themselves what to believe or disbelieve? Why should we allow government to decide for us in any manner whatsoever even a mere “suggestion” while holding the Big Stick of Government power behind its back?
During the oral arguments today though, the justices displayed skepticism towards a broad prohibition on governmental communications with social media platforms. They raised concerns that such a ruling could unduly restrain the government’s ability to address pressing issues. Fletcher defended the Biden admin’s actions and framed them as the government exercising its right to “speak for itself by informing, persuading, or criticizing private speakers.” He argued that the government is entitled to communicate with social media companies to influence their content moderation decisions, as long as these interactions do not veer into coercion.
Can there be any more pressing issue than Freedom of Speech? Can there be a more pressing issue than the people’s right to decide likely truth vs falsehood for themselves? Government is FORCE. George Washington recognized this. We see Social Media executives often hauled before Congress today. We see countless politicians saying it is the duty of Social Media to curb and police the speech of citizens. The coercion is very obviously present. The coercion extends abroad as well with with the EU and other governments threatening the market of various Social Media companies if they do not censor content that these nations demand be censored by equally non-objective standards.
While this obvious threat to Free Speech is present and growing the Court mealy-mouth response is appalling in the extreme.