A federal judge is interested in the nature of the government's interactions with major technology corporations and has ordered the government to disclose its communications.
Judge Terry Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana recently denied the Biden administration's motion to dismiss a landmark case alleging a conspiracy between the federal government and Big Tech to censor certain COVID-19-related users, as The Conservative Brief reported.
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
In Missouri v. Biden, the states of Louisiana and Missouri filed a lawsuit alleging that social media companies censored certain viewpoints and users on their platforms at the direction of members of President Joe Biden's administration and leaders of federal government agencies.
The lawsuit claims that social media companies improperly labeled information as "misinformation" and "disinformation" in violation of the First Amendment, that the federal government exceeded its authority and the Departments of Health and Human Services and 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.
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
“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.”
Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Republican from Missouri, accused the Biden administration of leading "the largest speech censorship operation in recent American history," which he discovered while serving as attorney general of Missouri.
“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.”
Jay Bhattacharya, a professor at the Stanford School of Medicine, issued a similar warning regarding the court arguments made by Biden's administration.
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
Schmitt claimed 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.”
