OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A federal judge wants to get to the bottom of what kind of interactions the federal government has had with big tech companies and has ordered that it show its communications.
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana Judge Terry Doughty recently rejected the Biden administration’s motion to dismiss a landmark case alleging collusion between the federal government and Big Tech to censor certain users related to COVID-19.
In Missouri v. Biden, the states of Louisiana and Missouri filed a lawsuit alleging that social media companies — such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn — censored certain viewpoints and users on its platforms at the direction of members of President Joe Biden’s administration as well as leaders at federal government agencies.
The lawsuit alleges that social media companies labeled information as “misinformation” and “disinformation” in violation of the First Amendment and that the federal government went beyond its authority and the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security violated the Administrative Procedure Act.
“The Court finds that the Complaint alleges significant encouragement and coercion that converts the otherwise private conduct of censorship on social media platforms into state action, and is unpersuaded by Defendants’ arguments to the contrary,” Doughty wrote in his ruling. “Further, while the Government may certainly select the messages it wishes to convey, this freedom is limited by the more fundamental principle that a government entity may not employ threats to limit the free speech of private citizens.”
Things heated up when Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey tweeted that Americans should be terrified of what Biden’s lawyers submitted to the judge regarding their reasoning for supporting some censorship.
The judge asked the feds if they had ever read George Orwell’s 1984, pointing out the similarities between the case and the book.
— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) June 1, 2023
The judge also asked them if the First Amendment applied to Americans’ right to say that the 2020 election was stolen.
Their answer?
It depends.
— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) June 1, 2023
The judge also pointed out that it seemed to be only conservatives who are targeted for their speech, asking the feds if they could provide one example of a liberal who was censored due to “misinformation.”
— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) June 1, 2023
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the Court asked the feds why he should believe them when they say they claim censorship has stopped and won’t happen again.
And that is exactly why we are asking the Court for a preliminary injunction to halt this vast censorship enterprise.
— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) June 1, 2023
Jay Bhattacharya, a professor at the Stanford School of Medicine, issued a similar warning about what Biden’s administration was arguing in court.
The Missouri v. Biden case has revealed the Biden administration’s shocking disregard for the free speech rights of its political opponents and scientific dissidents. The judge hearing the case referred to it as a Ministry of Truth. This thread by @akheriaty is absolute fire. https://t.co/VusWB5rCNy
— Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) May 28, 2023
Missouri Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt accused the Biden administration of leading “the largest speech censorship operation in recent American history,” which he uncovered during his role as Missouri attorney general.
“The Biden Administration has led the largest speech censorship operation in recent American history,” Schmitt said. “Since taking office, President Biden and his team have labored to suppress viewpoints with which they disagree. And in so doing, they have infringed upon the individual freedoms of millions of Americans.”
Schmitt said that the Biden administration “colluded with social media giants Meta, Twitter, and YouTube to censor free speech in the name of combating so-called ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation,’ which led to the suppression and censorship of truthful information on a scale never before seen.”