Photo: Mark Zuckerberg F8 2018 Keynote (41118888154), creator, Anthony Quintano, CC BY 2.0 DEED
In March, the Supreme Court decided four cases where it could have stood strongly against wrongdoing by Biden, the Department of Justice, and the State of New York. Instead, it acted to appease those liberal regimes.
One such case was the one that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) called “the most consequential free speech case in U.S. history,” Murthy v. Missouri. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had properly enjoined the Biden Administration from telling social media, such as Facebook and YouTube, to take down postings that Democrats do not like.
Such interference with free speech is an affront to the First Amendment, and yet most of the Supreme Court justices seemed just fine with it. The Justices should have taken the White House to the woodshed for its interference with Americans’ exercise of freedom of speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment.
It was a dismaying barrage of pro-censorship comments by justices that condoned infringements on free speech by the Biden Administration. Liberal Justice Elena Kagan declared that manipulation of the media “happens literally thousands of times a day in the federal government.”
Five Republican Justices raised no objection to the censorship of free speech by the Biden Administration. Only Justice Alito demanded to know why “There is constant pestering of Facebook and some of the other platforms,” and government officials “want to have regular meetings, and they suggest … rules that should be applied and why don’t you tell us everything that you’re going to do so we can help you and we can look it over.”
“And I thought: Wow, I cannot imagine federal officials taking that approach to the print media.” Justice Alito explained that the federal government has leverage over social media because of its special legal immunity from lawsuits, and the government has been “treating Facebook and these other platforms like they’re subordinates.”
This post originally appeared at https://www.phyllisschlafly.com/constitution/free-speech/the-most-consequential-free-speech-case/
