Independence Day: Federal Court Enjoins Biden-Big Tech Collusive “far-reaching and widespread censorship campaign” against Conservatives
“The Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition…. It is quite telling that each example or category of suppressed speech was conservative in nature…. [T]he evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario.”
We previously have covered the lawsuit brought by Missouri and Louisiana against the Biden administration regarding collusion with big tech platforms to silence mostly conservative voices.
After extensive pre-trial proceedings, the federal District Court has issued a Preliminary Injunction prohibiting further collusion. The Memorandum Decision is 155 pages. Most of it consists of extensive findings of fact and evidence of the collusion. Here are the key summary parts from the introduction and conclusion (emphasis added):
This case is about the Free Speech Clause in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The explosion of social-media platforms has resulted in unique free speech issues— this is especially true in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history. In their attempts to suppress alleged disinformation, the Federal Government, and particularly the Defendants named here, are alleged to have blatantly ignored the First Amendment’s right to free speech.
Although the censorship alleged in this case almost exclusively targeted conservative speech, the issues raised herein go beyond party lines….
***
The Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition. Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines; opposition to COVID-19 masking and lockdowns; opposition to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19; opposition to the validity of the 2020 election; opposition to President Biden’s policies; statements that the Hunter Biden laptop story was true; and opposition to policies of the government officials in power. All were suppressed. It is quite telling that each example or category of suppressed speech was conservative in nature. This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech. American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country.
Although this case is still relatively young, and at this stage the Court is only examining it in terms of Plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on the merits, the evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth.”721
721 An “Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’” refers to the concept presented in George Orwell’s dystopian novel, ‘1984.’ In the novel, the Ministry of Truth is a governmental institution responsible for altering historical records and disseminating propaganda to manipulate and control public perception.
The Plaintiffs have presented substantial evidence in support of their claims that they were the victims of a far-reaching and widespread censorship campaign. This court finds that they are likely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment free speech claim against the Defendants. Therefore, a preliminary injunction should issue immediately against the Defendants as set out herein.
The Plaintiffs Motion for Preliminary Injunction [Doc. No. 10] is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART.
The Plaintiffs’ request to certify this matter as a class action pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. Article 23(b)(2) is DENIED.
MORE TO FOLLOW
Here is the Judgment containing the terms of the injunction. Basically, wide range of communications with social media companies regarding regulating content, with carve-outs for alterting them to law enforcement and national security issues.
The case was started under then MO AG Eric Schmitt, now Senator, and continued under successor Andrew Bailey:
🚨BREAKING: A Federal Judge in Missouri v. Biden just granted a preliminary injunction prohibiting the FBI, DOJ, DHS & other agencies from working with Big Tech to censor on social media
Big win for the First Amendment on this Independence Day🇺🇸
I’m proud to have led the fight. pic.twitter.com/59FzDVuI4f
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) July 4, 2023
🚨BREAKING: The Court has granted our motion to BLOCK top officials in the federal government from violating the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans.
What a way to celebrate Independence Day.
— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) July 4, 2023
"… arguably the most massive attack against free speech in United States history."
– Missouri v. Biden Preliminary Injunction pic.twitter.com/0Wgfm3tS2t— Jennifer Cabrera (@jhaskinscabrera) July 4, 2023
NYT framing of this story shows where they stand on free speech. The Russian conspiracy peddlers at NYT are the disinformation… https://t.co/prvrxKPYbX
— Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) July 4, 2023
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Comments
WOW! Could not have picked a better day.
I remember when we saw the very first inklings of this sort of stuff back in the 2008 campaign, when Barky started talking about having people arrested for their campaign ads, for “misinformation”. Missouri was one of the places where it was explicit … from Sep 2008:
A St. Louis television station reports — their words — “The Barack Obama campaign is asking Missouri law enforcement to target anyone who lies or runs a misleading TV ad during the presidential campaign.”
Prosecutors and sheriffs from across Missouri are joining “The Barack Obama Truth Squad.”
They mention Jennifer Joyce, St. Louis Circuit Attorney and Bob McCullough, prosecutor for St. Louis County in Missouri. The reporter says, “They will be reminding voters that Barack Obama is a Christian who wants to cut taxes for anyone making less than $250,000 a year.”
The Barack Obama Truth Squad …
Kind of like Minitrue.
Barack Obama Truth Squad
BOTS
Like “Erica Marsh”
It’s good that I’m reminded that The One is a “Christian.” I would not have known otherwise.
‘..the US Govt seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian Ministry of Truth’.
When the Judge is pushing out rulings on routine motions and deliberately chooses to pepper the ruling with arguably confrontational phrasing …damn Son, this Judge ain’t playing around.
CINO – Christian in Name Only? How else do you describe a “parishioner” of Jeremiah Wright and not have any recollection of his racist & radical sermons?
Horse manure. Pure and simple.
The bureaucrats in the federal government, along with their lapdog media, Facetrash, Instashit, Twatter and the rest will continue to collude with this regime to control what we see.
Viewpoints will still be silenced and erased, the alphabet news outlets in collusion with the alphabet agencies, will propagandize everything. Sadly, this includes both Republitards and Demitards, who allow this crap to happen.
As long as Zuckerbucks, Chinesebucks, and Sorosbucks float around to line the pockets of politicians, nothing will change.
We all know that anytime the government “seeks cooperation “ from any private enterprise to limit free speech, it violates the first amendment.
But even morons on this platform will still sing the same old “private companies can do what they want” tune, followed by “if you don’t like it open your own domain” chorus.
Anyone who thinks differently is a stupid as the day is long.
There is no one and done decision, finding, policy, law, or election.
Drip, drip, drip changes the results. It took the progressive program something over a century to get where we are now.
True, there isn’t a single event to rely upon for lasting change. They d/prog built up the administrative.state over time inch by inch and with it the institutional arrogance and contempt for the rest of us. We had some progress this term from SCOTUS v administrative state and more to follow next term.
Two suggestions for reining in big tech would be:
1. Congress could clarify that the user data belongs to the user and may not be gathered, scraped, sold, traded or given without explicit user consent for each instance.
2. Refocus antitrust actions towards consumer choice of providers. Limit the size of the companies market share in their space to no more than 20% each. If it was good enough for AT&T it is good enough for FB or JP Morgan and every other publicly traded company.
The tyro-progs also did a few generations of social, and cultural engineering, too, that comes out in programmed language.
Simply getting other words on the field changes the game. One drip at a time.
Good notions, brainstorming on big tech.
Perspective also matters. I remember when people talked computing workstations, and Stever Jobs famously coined “bicycles for the mind.” I remember the early blog-o-sphere, where everyone had their own printing press, beholden to no one for distribution.
Meanwhile, the vastly more, vastly more powerful stand-alone computing gizmos are ever-more captive, integrated and orchestrated. That’s a choice.
We also have to change the perspective behind that choice, thinking of us as digits of the commensal(*) played out in e-space, or we’re all individually Homesteading on The Electronic Frontier(**).
(*) Motto-like phrase referring to the proles in the collectivist pole in LeGuinn’s The Left Hand of Darkness.
(**) Title of a book on one part of the earlier days of Teh Interwebs. Worth a read. “This has all happened before, and it will happen again.”
Who will have standing for damages?
Is any individual at risk for criminal prosecution?
Is any individual at risk for civil judgements?
I personally have refrained from posting and sending links to friends for fear of government backlash. But those that were banned, their posts throttled or worse should get restitution.
They put a guy in prison for a Meme!
I don’t want a win where someone says, “good game, we’ll get you next time”, I want those that planned and executed this enjoined and punished!
How can this be achieved?
In an era where Hunter skates?
Speaking of skating:
Hunter appears to have left his cocaine at the White House while visiting his daddy last week. He called the secret service several times to see if they found it. Apparently they have.
Is there any chance of banning those behind this from social media for life?
Screw that. Hang them by the neck until dead
The court can depend on the Executive Branch to enforce its decisions.
That’s why I’m talking civil financial penalties for individuals.
WaPo: “The Trump-appointed judge’s move could upend years of efforts to enhance coordination between the government and social media companies.”
NYT: “Courts are increasingly being forced to weigh in on such issues — with the potential to upend decades of legal norms that have governed speech online.”
“The ruling on Tuesday, in a lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri, is likely to be appealed by the Biden administration, but its impact could be sweeping, forcing government officials, including law enforcement agencies, to refrain from notifying the platforms of troublesome content.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/04/business/federal-judge-biden-social-media.html
NYT: “Courts are increasingly being forced to weigh in on such issues — with the potential to upend decades of legal norms that have governed speech online.”
LOL.
“decades”??
There’s only been any sizable speech online for the last 20 years – and that’s even a bit of a stretch. 2 decades in all … which is the absolute minimum of the plural “decades”. The NYSlimes is trying to make it sound as if these are “legal norms” of the past 60 years. What a joke.
I remember when I used to post on comments Yahoo had attached to its news stories. Those were wild. Funny as all get-out and completely, totally uncensored in any way, shape, or form. And yet people survived! Eventually, Yahoo killed the comments sections because they were making too much fun of the obvious left-wing biases of the stories.
Comments sections on most websites (thankfully not this one) have largely died out for 3 main reasons:
1. There’s a question of liability for the comments that no big company wants to be targeted for, whether they could successfully or unsuccessfully defend on it.
2. Content authors don’t like being questioned or being held accountable to site traffic.
3. Left/Right/Up/Down polarizing opinions are going to lower reader numbers. You could make a counter-argument that the comment sections also drive readership but readership growth is sometimes stunted by comment sections…even if it were neutral, you have the other two cons above.
Substack, Locals, and Discord have pretty vibrant comment gaggles. I wonder what’s different about them?
The court doesn’t need the executive branch to prosecute and jail those who violate its injunction. It has its own judicial contempt power. Moreover, this particular judge seems inclined to use this power if he has to, the U.S. Marshals will carry out his order.
Can we get some of those tooled-up IRS operators to help out?
Yeah, that’s telling.
“…could upend years of efforts to enhance coordination between the government and social media companies.”
This “coordination” is presumed to be an unalloyed good. Well, in case it was unclear where they’re coming from.
Weird how they’re at least as bugged when they’re caught doing the good stuff they’re doing. From regulation reviews, through laws, findings, suits, and court proceedings, they get all screechy when they’re caught.
No gas stove bans here. Pay no attention to that new interpretation of waters of the US.
“Respect my authoritah!
Or the other response might be “Good; about time.”
“Troublesome content” is theirs to shut down? “We’re just notifying here. What’s the harm?’ Oh, I don’t know, “Nice online business you have there. What licensing, merger approvial, financing, do you need coming up? BTW, you know we do privacy and data security audits…”
Myselff, I aim to be troublesome.
I was gonna note the partisan hackery in the quotes, but that became every word including “and” and “the.”
Until cell doors start going *clang* it’s totally meaningless.
I guess it is a step in the right direction. I heard a sub for a very popular talk show say free speech is the right to be wrong. They were joking a bit, but it made so much sense.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.
— Mahatma Gandhi
If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all.
–Jacob Hornberger
It is a profound kind of caring, to allow others the right to be wrong. — Moi.
AIR someone was dissing Firefly.
Props and kudos to the state AG’s who brought this lawsuit. It is not the federal government’s job to police citizens’ opinions and communications, even if those opinions are considered offensive, erroneous, misguided, etc. The government’s conduct, here, has been indefensible, lawless and brazenly totalitarian.
What’s offensive is how obnoxious the vile Dumb-o-crats were in their censorship efforts, repeatedly crossing the line into coercive government action to stifle speech and opinions of all varieties.
I mean, engaging in efforts to remove parody accounts mocking Dumb-o-crats? This is the stuff of third-world, tinpot dictatorships. It’s just outrageous in the extreme. The Dumbs need to pay a heavy price for these antics.
I’m adding my
WOW!!
It’s a good first step. I’m waiting for the first contempt citation to be filed.
I want to shout..
from page 103
“The Government and/or the OSG does
not have the right to determine the truth.”
but the horrible thing is, they wanted to make lies into the truth.
If the gubmint takes away 1A, our only recourse is 2A.
If an when the court finds that the gernment participated or ordered the suppression of one’s free speech rights can fianancial damages be awarded?
This was a very strong opinion-DOJ is appealing-the record before the appellate court will set forth all the evidence of censorship
Chuck Schumer to undertake gun control push after US judge restricts Biden officials from contact with social media firms.
The Feds have filed a notice of appeal. Good luck with that—it’s in the Fifth District. Those judges are probably the most conservative in the country. They won’t give the Washington lawyers the time of day, but the concurring opinion(s) will be fun to read.