White House’s Efforts to Combat Misinformation Face Supreme Court Test

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Monday on whether the Biden administration violated the First Amendment in combating what it said was misinformation on social media platforms.

It is the latest in an extraordinary series of cases this term requiring the justices to assess the meaning of free speech in the internet era.

The case arose from a barrage of communications from administration officials urging platforms to take down posts on topics like the coronavirus vaccines, claims of election fraud and Hunter Biden’s laptop. Last year, a federal appeals court severely limited such interactions.

Alex Abdo, a lawyer with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said the Supreme Court’s review of that decision must be sensitive to two competing values, both vital to democracy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/us/politics/supreme-court-white-house-misinformation.html

In the real world, the WH's efforts are seen as trying to stop social media platforms from spreading dangerous lies designed to misinform the public. In the alternate reality conservatives exist in, those efforts are seen as attempts to block the free speech of conservative voices. Equating free speech with permission to tell lies that harm democracy while purposely misinforming the public.

 

that's a lot of words to describe "free speech suppression".

 

Blinken says fighting disinfo 'vital US national security interest'

https://www.france24.com/en/live-ne...g-disinfo-vital-us-national-security-interest

It's a global effort. There are cryptographic technologies that could be used to validate the origin, authenticity, and integrity of information as well as ensure privacy of data and communications. However, the government has resisted these, since it impairs the ability of the government to employ misinformation and to modify or intercept information.

 

The funny part here is that the Biden folks simply wanted to restrict speech the way the Chinese do it. SCOTUS will flame this. And Americans will live to enjoy their freedom.

The OP is just the restatement of the original lie. Democrats don't want folks to be able to disagree with them. Democrats believe that you may only think the way they tell you to think, and if you speak out, it will be a crime.

 

"fight information that makes the WH look bad or its opponents look good"

 

I think it's important to get on top of the misinformation game, especially as pertains to elections, because it opens the door to foreign meddling. It's a tough task, in that social media would have to fact check entries. They somewhat do this now, but tweets and posts circulate so quickly that it's near impossible.

After delaying the 1/6 trial for Trump's immunity claim, I don't have much confidence in the integrity of this Supreme Court. The DC district court presented the case on a silver platter to the Supreme Court, with Trump's lawyer on record saying that Trump could order a Seal Team to assassinate a political rival, and NOT face prosecution. Absurd!

 

Do people have the right to lie in public? Absolutely!
Does the government, in its duty to protect the public, have an obligation to ask media to refrain from publishing known false information that is harmful to the public? As long as it can do so without the use of force? Absolutely.

Did the government try to influence media to avoid publishing harmful lies? Absolutely!
Did the government try to influence media to include caveats when publishing known falsehoods? Absolutely!
Did the government use force or the threat of force to influence media? No!

Sorry MAGA. While you have every right to lie you have no right to have your lies published and the government has an obligation (I know, that pesky commerce clause again) to expose your lies when they threaten the public.

None of you were punished for your lies.
None of you imprisoned for your lies.
No media shut down or blockaded for publishing your lies.

Your complaint has have no legal merit.

Maybe try telling the truth. See how it feels. Maybe even set you free from...

 

Murthy vs Missouri is being argued before the US Supreme Court. It deals with how much "jawboning" the FBI and other government agencies can do with social media companies in order to suppress misinformation. "Force" is not the only government action that may be prohibited. The government has an array of negative incentives available in its relations with major social media companies. Jawboning is a fairly mild one, but it is typically seen as a command or even a threat by the company being jawboned.

Supreme Court to hear case on how the government talks to social media companies

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear a case that could upend how social media platforms deal with posts containing anything from vaccine misinformation to election threats.

At the moment, various arms of the US government will communicate directly with platforms for all sorts of reasons. For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) might email directly with someone at Facebook during a global pandemic, especially if Facebook wants to set up an information hub for its users. (You can imagine similar scenarios for voter misinformation, election integrity, and all kinds of public emergencies.)

The core question at issue in Murthy v. Missouri is whether the government can flag potentially harmful posts to social media companies without it turning into unconstitutional coercion of speech. (Coercion in this vein is generally called “jawboning.”)

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/15/24101298/supreme-court-murthy-missouri-speech-social-media

 

-The problem here is who is the arbiter of all that is right and true?

-People do not learn the ultimate truth by having part of the debate silenced, rather they learn the truth by hearing all positions and then using the totality of that information to decide which sounds most credible. In truth, most issues have a fair amount of gray area and there is not one objective truth. All things Covid is a perfect illustration of such. The silencing of legitimate physicians that go against the government-approved narrative should be chilling to every American. I am not saying all physicians are correct, but their opinion certainly deserves to be entered into the public discourse.

-If a person or group were to be put in a position to be that arbiter, who is to say they would not be corrupted?

-Giving that type of power to anyone is far too ripe for corruption and as a result, ultimately unreliable.

-Giving that power to the executive branch is about as big of a conflict of interest as exists. The people pushing for Biden to have that power surely wouldn't want Trump to have that same voice. People need to have the ability to look beyond the here and now and understand that giving this power to the executive branch means giving that power to the other side as well. Neither side stays in power indefinitely.

 

So?

 

You can't control misinformation.
Example - Trump's bloodbath comment (in reference to an economic bloodbath for the auto industry ALREADY taken out of context by 93.7% of the left who only heard that one sentence on their news sources and now think he means the next Jan 6th
You cannot ban stupidity.

 

What Bribed Joe calls "misinformation" is whatever refutes his lies. Like his lie that Hunter's Laptop that details the Biden Family Criminal Organization was "Russian Disinformation".

Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.​

14 simple words, demanded by We The People before we would consent to the formation of a Federal Government, but a real problem for those that want to unjustly impose tyranny on a Free People. A real problem for those who want to lie about their corruption and ineptness and not be challenged on it.

The Lying Fake News New York Times Again Worries That Free Speech Endangers Democracy.

https://reason.com/2024/03/17/the-new-york-times-again-worries-that-free-speech-endangers-democracy/

The Propaganda Organ For the Left 'portrays the constitutional challenge to the government's social media meddling as a conspiracy by Donald Trump's supporters'

They go with "Orange Man Bad"


When trying to jail him and a half billion in unjust fines is not enough.

'On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in Murthy v. Missouri, which raises the question of when government efforts to suppress "misinformation" on social media violate the First Amendment. Neglecting that central question, The New York Times portrays the case as part of a conspiracy by Donald Trump's supporters to undermine democracy by promoting false claims that mislead voters and threaten the peaceful transfer of power.'

When Bribed Joe steals an election, he wants to make sure we all shut up about it.

'The First Amendment bars the government from "abridging the freedom of speech," full stop. As interpreted by the Supreme Court, that command applies to all sorts of speech, no matter how inaccurate, misleading, controversial, offensive, or hateful it might be, unless it fits into one of several narrowly defined exceptions, such as defamation, true threats, fraud, obscenity, and incitement to "imminent lawless action."'

Bribed Joe's minions try to justify as necessary to counter the official COVID vaccine narrative that the shot was 95% effective, had no side-effects, and that if you got the shot that you would not catch COVID, you would transmit COVID and you would not die of COVID and as soon as 60% of us got the shot our nation would have "herd immunity'. They used that to claim that anyone who didn't get the shot was murdering people. But, they also suppressed speech that the disease was manufactured in and escaped from a lab, unknowingly funded by the US taxpayers.

'The speech that worries Rutenberg and Myers, such as false claims about COVID-19 vaccines and fraud in the 2020 presidential election, does not fit into any of those exceptions. It is therefore constitutionally protected.'

Bribed Joe claims they only engaged in persuasion and never in coercion which concedes the point that they do not have the coercive power to stifle and prevent speech.

SCOTUS will determine if the 5th circuit is correct in its decision that "executive branch agencies violated the First Amendment by interfering with private moderation decisions." Those agencies, FIRE says, "used both carrot and stick tactics to achieve indirectly what the Constitution prohibits: governmental control over social media moderation decisions."'

'FIRE sees "substantial evidence" that the White House, the FBI, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security
Agency "engaged in unlawful 'significant encouragement' by placing persistent pressure on platforms to change their moderation policies." Some federal officials, it says, "became so entangled with social media platform moderation policies that they were able to effectively rewrite the platforms' policies from the inside."'

https://reason.com/2024/03/17/the-new-york-times-again-worries-that-free-speech-endangers-democracy/

 

Well, as Bribed Joe demands this unjust power to control the speech of others, they also lie constantly:

• Bribed Joe continues to lie and claim that Trump said "Nazi's were fine people" when what he said was that there were "fine folks on both sides of the question of whether the statues of southern generals should be pulled down.'
• Government claims that anyone who isn't sold out to the destructive, but very lucrative cult of DEI is 'filled with White Rage"
• Bribed Joe's government is holding political prisoners from the J6 protests, to this day,while other elements of the Left turn felons back out on the street without bail, before the police can even finish writing up their reports.
• Bribed Joe claimed that GA voter reforms were "worse that Jim Crow, they were Jim Eagle" and deliberately designed to take away the right of some Black Americans to vote.
• Bribed Joe's government claims it's hate speech to call a man a man and a woman a woman.
• Bribed Joe claims the border is secure.
• Bribed Joe's government went after School Board Moms and Catholics as "terrorists."
• Bribed Joe is president because of a disinformation campaign on Hunter's laptop, coordinated with the CIA, FBI, Social Media and the Lying Mainstream Media.

Bribed Joe wants to be able to stifle the just counter-narrative to his constant blizzard of slander and lies.

FIRE (a Free Speech Group that filed in the case) 'also agrees with the 5th Circuit that some of these communications qualified as coercive. "White House officials issued 'urgent, uncompromising demands to moderate
content' and used 'foreboding, inflammatory, and hyper-critical phraseology' when social media companies failed to moderate content in the way they requested or as quickly as officials desired," it says. "Demands to remove specific posts 'ASAP,' the use of words and phrases like 'you are hiding the ball,' and officials warning they are 'gravely concerned' made clear the threats to social media companies were 'phrased virtually as orders.' And officials repeatedly 'refuse[d] to take "no" for an answer and pester[ed]' the social media companies until they 'succumb[ed].' More ominously, they 'threatened—both expressly and implicitly—to retaliate against inaction.'"'

Bribed Joe is now lying about whether they used persuasion or coercion to stifle the free speech and expression of Free Americans.

'The record "contains copious evidence that the social media platforms understood communications from the White House and FBI agents to be threats and acted accordingly," FIRE says. "For example, a social media platform expressly agreed to 'adjust [its] policies' to reflect the changes sought by officials. And several social media platforms 't[ook] down content, including posts and accounts that originated from the United States, in direct compliance with' a request from the FBI that they delete 'misinformation' on the eve of the 2022 congressional election. When the White House and FBI 'requested' the platforms to jump, they ultimately, if reluctantly, asked how high."

And here it comes:

'FIRE adds that the White House and the FBI "threatened 'adverse consequences' to social media platforms if they failed to comply." When the platforms' content moderation "was too slow for the White House's liking, officials publicly accused them of 'killing people'" and "privately threatened them with antitrust enforcement, repeal of Section 230 immunities, and other 'fundamental reforms' to make sure the platforms were 'held accountable.'"'

Threats are not persuasion, Threats are coercion.

Threatened to sicc Bribed Joe on them.

'In addition to those "express threats," FIRE says, "both White House and FBI officials' statements contained implied threatened consequences because those officials are backed by the 'awesome power' wielded by the federal executive branch. For example, White House officials frequently alluded to the President's potential involvement should social media platforms not moderate content to their satisfaction." And "as a federal enforcement agency that conducts various internet investigations," the FBI "has tools at its disposal to force a platform to take down content."'

https://reason.com/2024/03/17/the-new-york-times-again-worries-that-free-speech-endangers-democracy/

The plaintiffs made this case to the appellate court's satisfaction, so unless there was some factual inaccuracy, flaw in reasoning, or misapplication of law, I'd say that the Bribed Joe Administration is going to engage in a lot more lying and then lose.

 

This is the USA, not the Soviet Union or the former Nazi Germany. No KGB's and Ministry of Propaganda's allowed here Mr.Biden.

 

S. Ct. Announces Test for When a Government Official's Social Media Posts Are "State Action"
'This bears on when the official's comment deletion or blocking decisions may violate the First Amendment.'

'From Justice Barrett's unanimous opinion this morning in Lindke v. Freed:'

PRONG 1

'The first prong of this test is grounded in the bedrock requirement that "the conduct allegedly causing the deprivation of a federal right be fairly attributable to the State." An act is not attributable to a State unless it is traceable to the State's power or authority…. [When the challenged conduct "entail functions and obligations in no way dependent on state authority," state action does not exist….'

'For state action to exist, the State must be "responsible for the specific conduct of which the plaintiff complains." There must be a tie between the official's authority and "the gravamen of the plaintiff 's complaint." …'

This could have some bearing on case under discussion.

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/03/1...fficials-social-media-posts-are-state-action/

 

The funnier part is this court case comes right after Biden Tweeted that Trump wanted a bloodbath.

 

Hopefully that will be the clear message from SCOTUS.

Bribed Joe is pretending that the Constitution on prohibits COERCION, but is that really the standard?

Is Coercion Really the Standard?

'the First Amendment distinguishes "abridging" the freedom of speech from "prohibiting" the free exercise of religion. It thereby makes clear that government action merely abridging, or reducing, the freedom of speech violates the First Amendment. To be sure, coercing or other prohibiting is sufficient to show a speech violation, but it is not necessary. Hamburger, Courting Censorship, § III.B.'

What about Borderline Hypotheticals? 'borderline government "jawboning."'

Still wrong.

• 'The censorship in Murthy suppressed speech that was not criminal or otherwise unlawful, and the injunction specifically excludes government action against unlawful speech.
• The government set itself up as the nation's arbiter of truth—as if it were competent to judge what is misinformation and what is true information. In retrospect, it turns out to have suppressed much that was true and promoted much that was false.
• The government went after lawful speech not in an isolated instance, but repeatedly and systematically as a matter of policy, resulting in the suppression of entire narratives and lines of thought.
• This isn't jawboning. Rather than talk to newspapers about their own speech, the government asked the platforms to suppress third party speech. If the government were merely jawboning, it would have talked to the censored speakers, asking them to reconsider their posts. Instead, it requested the platforms to suppress the speech of others.
• The government kept much of the censorship and its role secret, so Americans often did not even know they were censored or who did it. The covert nature of the government's efforts bespeaks a recognition that the government was acting unlawfully.
• The government often suppressed speech coercively.'

'The government censorship is thus far beyond anything that could be constitutional. There consequently is no need to worry about innocent or borderline cases. That's not what's at stake here.'

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/03/14/faqs-re-murthy-v-missouri/

 

'How Much Suppressive Effect Is Necessary to Violate the First Amendment?'

The correct answer is NONE.

'Actually, none. That's right, none at all. The First Amendment says that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech. . ." That means that a law or policy abridging the freedom of speech is void ab initio, and thus without any need to show suppressive effects.'

If its a government policy designed to hinder speech, it's dead the instant it is formed. That's all the plaintiffs need to demonstrate was that the policy was designed to abridge speech.

'As it happens, the government's censorship policies had massive suppressive effects, both through suppression and the chilling effect. For example, distinguished doctors and scientists, including Drs. Jayanta Bhattacharya, Aaron Kheriaty, and Martin Kulldorff, were censored for speech within their expertise. Dr. Kulldorf, for example, a Harvard epidemiologist and one of the most cited scientists on vaccine safety, was censored on Twitter for saying that children and the naturally immune do not need a Covid-19 vaccine. He also was censored for saying that exaggerations about the efficacy of masks, including exaggerations by government officials, gave vulnerable people a false sense of security and therefore might lead to harm. Indeed, the suppression of information about adverse vaccine events misled ordinary Americans into thinking there was essentially no risk. So, many individuals who otherwise might have paused got vaccinated and died or were disabled (see Dressen v. Flaherty). But even without proof of the suppression and chilling effect, the government's policies abridging the freedom of speech were unconstitutional and void the moment they were adopted.'

Take a good hard look at the last sentence. That's the difference between a Constitutional Liberal Democracy befitting a Free and Independent Nation and an unjust Tyranny imposed by a demented liar.

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/03/14/faqs-re-murthy-v-missouri/

 

Information that makes whoever lies look good. Which is particularly bad when it puts the life of people in jeopordy.

However, we don't know if that's going to matter in a Supreme Court whose rulings have relied heavily on bribery to partisan right-wing justices.

 

Analysis of the Lindke v. Freed opinion 3/15/24. Government officials may not delete comments on posts created in their official capacity, even when on a personal account. Blocking commenters on a personal account containing official posts appears even more troublesome to sort out. The USSC set out the principles and remanded Lindke v. Freed back to the 6th Circuit. It also sent a similar case back to 9th Circuit.

 

The problem that the "truthiness" of media tends to be heavily dependent on the physical characteristics of the medium. If the media is high quality, e.g. properly scripted, well designed, expertly produced, and broadly published, then people will get the impression that it is more likely true.

Consider that the Word of God in your favorite religion is typically well printed on fine paper, bound in leather, edges gilded, and stamped with gold lettering, rather than printed crudely on pulp paper and bound as a paperback. The validity is much better impressed upon the masses by the more expensive volume. That also goes for the row of expensively printed and bound volumes in the lawyer's bookcase.

Our present quandary is at least partially due to the fact that digital technology makes it far less expensive to produce high quality texts, pictures, audio files, and video clips. The difference between publications produced on mimeographs in an activists basement and a magazine produced by a publisher who buys ink by the barrel no longer exists. And once produced, the activist can now use the internet to almost equal the distribution reach of the publisher.

(See also Marshall McLuhan, "The Medium is the Massage".)

 

While what you say above is true, this doesn't refute or change my original statement.

People do not learn the ultimate truth by silencing debate. They learn the truth by seeing all sides of the debate. Being exposed to only one side of a debate results in blindly following, rather than exercising one's independent judgment.

When people go to great lengths to completely silence opposing opinions on a particular subject, be wary. Rather than silencing opposing opinions, if their position is as clear cut as they claim, then they should be able to adequately out debate false positions in the public eye.

 

It's not that simple. I know perfectly rational people who believe outlandish things because they've "been doing their research", which seems to be watching slickly produced bogus videos on bitchute and similar web sites. Even if you get a transcript of the video, provide detailed comments, along with journal articles and official press releases, they can't be moved away from their position. They discount any academic or government publication as part of a vast conspiracy.

 

It IS that simple.

People do not learn the ultimate truth by silencing debate. They learn the truth by seeing all sides of the debate. Being exposed to only one side of a debate results in blindly following, rather than exercising one's independent judgment.

The situaiton that I originally gave regarding Covid is a PERFECT example. To hide/silence the opinions of legitimate physicians is unconscionable. I am not pushing for a particular agenda on that topic, but I do push for an open debate. Not that it matters to this topic, but I am pro-vaccine and have gotten a booster every year, so I am not trying to push an anti-vaccine agenda by any means. The way that dissenting opinions were silenced should be chilling to every American. There is no individual or group with the legitimate authority to be the arbiter of all things that are correct, and nor should there be. A truly free exchange of ideas is vital to a free society. There is nothing complicated about this concept.

 

Actually, it's not complicated. The Federal Government has no legitimate power 'abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press' and shame on Bribed Joe for claiming that they do.

STANDING

'the capacity to receive uncensored speech is essential for speakers to formulate and express their views. There is no risk of overly broad standing claims because the standing in this case rests at the very least on the plaintiffs in their capacity as speakers who were suppressed. The injunction also rests on their claims as speakers, who need the freedom to read the speech of others in order to develop and express their own views. Thus, in their capacity as speakers, they have a right to an injunction against censorship of all persons whose posts they might read.'

Do the States Have Freedom of Speech under the First Amendment?

'The text of the First Amendment's speech clause expressly limits the federal government, not the states, and it does not confine those who can claim its rights to citizens or even the people. The states thus have the First Amendment's freedom of speech.'

'This has been clear, moreover, since the founding era. When protesting against the 1798 Sedition Act, Jefferson and Madison, in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, asserted the First Amendment's freedom of speech. It therefore is evident that the states enjoy the amendment's freedom of speech and, moreover, that they can assert it on behalf of their peoples. Once again, states are serving as an essential counterweight to federal censorship, and the justices should appreciate the fact that the states are working through the courts this time, not interposition.'

Will There Be No Remedy for Most Massive Censorship in American History?

'The Supreme Court's doctrine on qualified immunity largely deprives Americans of a remedy for past censorship. And if the Court confines the injunction here—for example, by allowing an injunction protecting the plaintiffs, but not others—then there will no effective injunction against future censorship. So there's a real risk that the Court will deprive Americans of any effective remedy, whether against past or future censorship.'

'Indeed, this result may have already happened. Americans need legal remedies that will stop censorship in its tracks. But injunctions can't be timely against a largely covert censorship regime. Because of the secrecy, it took half a decade to get the current injunction. Moreover, an injunction is unlikely to bar all the censorship, especially under precedents, such as Blum, that emphasize coercion. The Fifth Circuit's injunction (which is narrower than the original district court one) enjoins only some of the censorship, leaving much room for other government-orchestrated suppression. So Americans are already without an effective remedy—even against the most massive censorship regime in the nation's history. The Supreme Court therefore needs to worry whether its doctrines (for example, on qualified immunity and on coercion) have already left Americans without adequate remedies against the suppression of speech. See Hamburger, Courting Censorship, passim.'

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/03/14/faqs-re-murthy-v-missouri/