Tag: censorship

Censorship on Trial at the Supreme Court

Billed as one of the most consequential lawsuits of the last century, Murthy v. Missouri (formerly Missouri v Biden) is a legal battle that stands at the intersection of free speech protections and social media companies. 

The plaintiffs, which include psychiatrist Aaron Kheriaty, and epidemiologists Martin Kulldorff and Jay Bhattacharya, cosignatories of the Great Barrington Declaration, allege the US government coerced social media companies to censor disfavoured viewpoints that were constitutionally protected by the First Amendment.

The US government denies coercing social media companies, arguing it was “friendly encouragement” in an effort to protect Americans from “misinformation” in a public health emergency.

The Constitution is clear – it forbids the US government from abridging free speech. But a private company such as a social media platform bears no such burden and is not ordinarily constrained by the First Amendment.

This case asks whether certain government officials impermissibly coerced social media companies to violate the First Amendment rights of social media users. The case now sits before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).

The Case So Far

The case has seen several twists and turns since it was originally filed in 2022.

Discovery allowed plaintiffs to document nearly 20,000 pages showing platforms like Twitter (now X), Facebook, YouTube, and Google stifled free speech by removing or downgrading stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop, the 2020 presidential election, and various Covid-19 policies.

The plaintiffs described it as an “unprecedented, sprawling federal censorship enterprise.”

On July 4, 2023, US District Court Terry Doughty granted a motion to restrict federal government officials from communicating with social media companies over content it believed to be misinformation.

Specifically, they were prohibited from meeting or contacting by phone, email, or text message or “engaging in any communication of any kind with social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

Doughty indicated there was “substantial evidence” that the US government violated the First Amendment by engaging in a widespread censorship campaign and that “if the allegations made by plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”

The Biden Administration appealed the decision in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that the officials exercised a form of permissible government speech because they only pointed out content that violated the platforms’ policies to reduce the harms of online misinformation.

On September 8, 2023, the Fifth Circuit largely affirmed Judge Doughty’s order stating that US government officials were engaging “in a broad pressure campaign designed to coerce social-media companies into suppressing speakers, viewpoints, and content disfavored by the government.”

It was determined that the harms of such censorship radiated far beyond the plaintiffs in the case, essentially impacting every social-media user.

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Years of Government Censorship Called ‘Potential Health Danger’

There’s a real danger coming for Americans should there be another pandemic, which in all probability will happen at some time.

And it’s not necessarily from the actual health danger, it stems from the censorship and misinformation campaigns that the American government launched during the COVID-19 threat.

That’s according to Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University.

Long considered a constitutional expert, he’s testified before Congress on a variety of constitutional disputes, and even represented members in court.

He cited the misinformation delivered by the government during COVID, its crackdown on alternative views about treatments, the mandatory shots, the masks and much, much more.

That all has produced in the American public a distrust of government, as many of the views mandated by the government have since proven wrong, and many of the perspectives censored for being wrong have been documented as being right.

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Harvard scrubs ‘How to Blow Up a Pipeline’ film info from website

Harvard Law School scrubbed its website of an event page advertising a screening of the film “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” amid concerns about endorsing violence.

Internet archives show the event page was removed sometime between Friday and Tuesday when The College Fix noticed it was gone. A post advertising the screening on Harvard’s Systemic Justice Project website also was removed prior to the event.

“How to Blow Up a Pipeline” is a fictional story about climate activists who blow up a section of pipe in Texas, according to the film’s website.

The trailer opens with a man building a homemade explosive and ends with police arriving at the site of a pipeline that has been blown up. The characters call the bombing “justified” and “an act of self-defense.”

It is unclear if the Wednesday evening screening was canceled, rescheduled, or still took place.  The Fix contacted the HLS Film Society, communications office, and event moderator Professor Jon Hanson by email and phone Tuesday asking if the event had been canceled. None replied.

The Fix also reached out to the film society, Hanson, and the communications office March 28 with questions regarding the concerns about the film endorsing violence and university organizers’ stance on peaceful advocacy.

The film screening drew criticism online in recent weeks, including concerns that Harvard may be supporting violent activism. Critics include U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, an Illinois Republican, who said in a March 28 post on X that violent acts like those portrayed in the film are the reason he supports harsher penalties for eco-terrorism.

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Net Neutrality Could Expand Biden’s Social Media Censorship To The Whole Internet

The Supreme Court recently heard oral argument in one of the most important cases this term, one with critical implications for First Amendment free speech rights as society proceeds further into a world reliant upon internet service.

The controversy at the heart of Murthy v. Missouri is the Biden administration’s effort to pressure or “jawbone” social media to censor various opinions and public policy advocacy about the Covid pandemic that it found objectionable. 

The Biden administration naturally claims it was simply engaging in discourse with social media leaders to “inform and persuade,” but discovered correspondence included direct threats against the companies while White House officials openly and publicly threatened new “legal and regulatory measures” if the targeted groups failed to submit to its desires. 

Those revelations only confirm widespread suspicion that the left-leaning administrative state, favored and further empowered by the Biden administration, seeks to exploit its vast authority to suppress the speech of Americans who don’t share its preferred narratives or big-government goals.

The Supreme Court must now determine whether that White House pressure campaign crossed the line into unconstitutional intimidation and censorship, even without formal government prosecution or enforcement. Under applicable Supreme Court precedent, the Biden administration’s form of “informal censorship may sufficiently inhibit the circulation of publications to warrant injunctive relief,” even where the targeted groups are “free” to ignore its threats, because “people do not lightly disregard officers’ thinly veiled threats.” 

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Head of Controversial Global Engagement Center Admits Europe’s Regulatory Power Over Social Media Censorship Enforcement

The head of the US State Department’s highly controversial Global Engagement Center (GEC), James Rubin, appears to be on a “press tour” to promote more stringent regulation around social media, and more censorship.

Rubin is doing this seemingly oblivious of the “elephant in the room” – that GEC is at the center of scandals involving government/Big Tech collusion (this bureau engaged in flagging posts on social media) and even lawsuits stemming from these accusations.

Many of Rubin’s comments made on a recent Politico podcast episode compare and contrast the degree to which the EU and the US are able to regulate social media (and stifle speech).

He also seeks to reinforce the perception of GEC not as a government workaround for carrying out censorship on privately-owned platforms (which would be illegal in the US), but as an entity that is vital in combating “disinformation.”

In this case, AI is considered as a “force for good,” as Rubin revealed GEC would start using it to counter what it decides to consider as “disinformation,” and the policy is also to make sure as many other countries as possible fall in line with the US on this issue.

Regarding what the US could learn from others, Rubin singled out the EU where regulatory frameworks allow the authorities to carry out control and censorship of online information more aggressively, but also praised the work his country, the UK, and Canada are doing together to impose the use of AI watermarks.

Asked to what degree GEC “engages directly” with social platforms, Rubin first deflected by lamenting about how much better equipped the EU is to combat “misinformation” thanks to greater regulatory powers, and then claimed that GEC “does not work with them (platforms) – we meet with them.”

As for what “not working” with someone means according to Rubin, it goes like this: “We try to discuss the trends and the tactics that are used by manipulative countries or non-state actors. We work on that with them. We consult with them. They tell us what they’re seeing. We tell them what we’re seeing.”

He also asserted, “We do not ask them to take things down.”

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Climate Alarmists Battle to Censor Film Exposing ‘Climate Crisis Scam’

It’s been a little over a week since “Climate: The Movie,” a documentary produced by Thomas Nelson and directed by Martin Durkin, was released on Vimeo, YouTube, Rumble, and other platforms. And already, it’s garnered millions of views and thousands of reviews.

“Watch this documentary to understand the lies, the pseudoscience, but also the self-interest of government-funded parasites pushing climate alarmism,” Maxime Bernier, the founder and leader of the People’s Party of Canada, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, about the film that details how “an eccentric environmental scare grew into a powerful global industry.”

“The final nail in the coffin for the ‘human-induced climate change’ scam. An absolute MUST-WATCH!” Wide Awake Media posted on X while linking to the movie, which features an elite list of scientists, including Nobel Laureate John Clauser, Richard Lindzen, emeritus professor of meteorology at MIT, and Steven Koonin, a theoretical physicist and professor at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering.

Still, not all the responses have been positive.

“I’m a Dutch science journalist, and I watched [Climate: The Movie],” Maarten Keulemans posted on X. “It’s full of crap.”

Some reviewers went so far as to call for censorship.

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AMA President Advocates for Stricter Censorship of Health “Misinformation,” Urges Platforms To Follow YouTube’s Strict Speech Policy

The American Medical Association (AMA) President Jesse Ehrenfeld is arguing in favor of more censorship, supposedly targeting those “spreading misinformation.”

Ehrenfeld is happy with how Google/YouTube is doing that, via the controversial “medical misinformation” policy which he says “landed a solid punch” (against suspected medical information, not free speech, according to him). And, Ehrenfeld is urging other platforms to adopt similar rules.

YouTube mandates that its users must strictly adhere to whatever local health authorities or the World Health Organization say about health-related matters.

Interestingly, Ehrenfeld unwittingly provides an example of the notorious “revolving door” practice between the US government and private tech companies when he quotes from a blog post co-written by Garth Graham, whom he identifies as “a former US deputy assistant secretary for health who now leads YouTube Health.”

In a blog post of his own, Ehrenfeld now writes that US federal officials, including the surgeon general, have an obligation to “actively counter voices” that are deemed to be deliberately spreading misinformation about (Covid) vaccines and other issues.

Ehrenfeld then goes into the Murthy v. Missouri case, currently in the US Supreme Court, and how to “balance” the need to suppress those voices with the First Amendment speech protections.

The case accuses the Biden White House of colluding with private companies to censor speech, but Ehrenfeld’s organization, along with four other medical associations, doesn’t appear to see anything wrong in that.

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How the EU Plans to Regulate Online Influencers Towards “Responsible” Online Speech and Conduct

EU’s next target in the bloc’s self-inflicted “war on disinformation” is – online influencers.

The initiative comes with the stated goal to “educate” influencers, using regulations, about what their responsibilities are in case “harmful” content they share happens to be deemed as having a “potential” adverse impact on their audience.

You could hardly get more convoluted in trying to push through rules that are not meant to prevent unlawful behavior – because none is happening – but to, regardless, steer online narratives in a desired direction. And that’s why you know this is coming from Brussels, even if reports had failed to specify.

And “from Brussels” is a double entendre, since the idea originates from the current, 6-month Belgian EU presidency, the European Conservative reported. “Harmful content with potential impact” would be the usual collection of poorly or controversially defined disinformation, hate speech, cyberbullying, and the like.

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USAID’S Disinformation Primer: Global Censorship In The Name Of Democracy

A report from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) outlines how the government agency has been encouraging governments, tech platforms, establishment media outlets and advertisers to work together to censor huge swaths of the Internet. The 97-page “disinformation primer,” obtained by conservative firm America First Legal under the Freedom of Information Act, purports to be fighting fake news. However, much of the organization’s focus appears to be on preventing individuals from finding information online that challenges official narratives and leads to increased questioning of the system more generally.

The document calls for regulating video games and online message boards, steering individuals away from alternative media and back towards more elite-friendly sites, and for governments to work with advertisers to cripple organizations that refuse to toe official lines financially. Furthermore, it highlights government-backed fact-checking groups like Bellingcat, Graphika, and the Atlantic Council as leaders in the fight against disinformation, despite the fact that those groups have close connections to the national security state, which is an overwhelming conflict of interest.

The news that a government agency is promoting such a program is worrying enough. However, we shall also see how USAID itself has promoted fake news to push for regime change abroad.

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Missouri AG Andrew Bailey Files Lawsuit Against Media Matters for Refusal to Cooperate with State Investigation and Turn Over Documents Related to Twitter-X Fraud Investigation

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed suit on Monday against Media Matters for America for refusal to cooperate with a Missouri State investigation.

This comes after AG Andrew Bailey sued Media Matters in December for violating state consumer protection laws and defrauding Missourians.

AG Andrew Bailey accused Media Matters of using fraud to solicit donations from Missourians in order to bully advertisers.

Attorney General Andrew Bailey made this explosive accusation, “We have reason to believe Media Matters used fraud to solicit donations from Missourians in order to bully advertisers into pulling out of X, the last platform dedicated to free speech in America.”

The Missouri Attorney General did not hold back in his attacks on Media Matters alleging the enemies of free speech, like Media Matters for America, are attempting to kill Twitter-X because they cannot control it now that Elon Musk took over. Bailey added, “I’m fighting to ensure progressive tyrants masquerading as news outlets cannot manipulate the marketplace in order to wipe out free speech.”

Media Matters for America (MMFA) refused to turn over court ordered documents so on Monday Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed lawsuit against MMFA for their refusal to cooperate in the state’s investigation.

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