{"id":2001114,"date":"2023-08-15T11:18:02","date_gmt":"2023-08-15T15:18:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/in-landmark-free-speech-case-fifth-circuit-judge-likens-government-coercion-of-big-tech-to-mob-boss\/"},"modified":"2023-08-15T11:19:42","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T15:19:42","slug":"in-landmark-free-speech-case-fifth-circuit-judge-likens-government-coercion-of-big-tech-to-mob-boss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/in-landmark-free-speech-case-fifth-circuit-judge-likens-government-coercion-of-big-tech-to-mob-boss\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifth Circuit Judge compares government coercion of Big Tech to a &#8216;mob&#8217; boss in landmark free speech case."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">36<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fin-landmark-free-speech-case-fifth-circuit-judge-likens-government-coercion-of-big-tech-to-mob-boss%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2001114&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n<div>\n<figure>\n    <\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<h2>Will the Government Coerce\u2063 Social Media Companies?<\/h2>\n<p>Whether or not the federal government and its myriad agencies will be able to coerce, cajole, encourage, threaten, and browbeat <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ga-poll-watcher-it-expert-non-trump-supporter-affidavit-sudden-surge-of-20000-mail-in-votes-for-biden-in-early-hours-on-nov\/\" title=\"GA Poll Watcher, IT Expert, Non-Trump Supporter Affidavit: Sudden Surge of 20,000 Mail-In-Votes For Biden In Early Hours On Nov\">social media companies<\/a> into removing views it does not like from their platforms was the \u200bquestion before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ca5.uscourts.gov\/OralArgRecordings\/23\/23-30445_8-10-2023.mp3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The government made an expedited appeal of the <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/07\/07\/in-missouri-v-biden-judge-checks-government-power-because-corporate-media-wont\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">July 4<sup>th<\/sup> order of the district court in Louisiana<\/a> prohibiting it from directing or commanding social media companies from taking down content the government did not like. In barely a month, the issue was \u2063briefed by the parties, including the states\u2064 of Missouri and Louisiana and individual plaintiffs, Jay Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff, Aaron Kheriaty, Jill Hines,\u200b and Jim Hoft, barred from various <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/businessman-kevin-oleary-defends-free-speech-online\/\" title=\"Businessman Kevin O\u2019Leary defends free speech online\">social media platforms<\/a> for\u200c their statements disliked by \u2064the government.<\/p>\n<p>While the parties and the court were\u2064 concerned with issues of standing and the scope of the\u2062 injunction, the key issue at the heart of the case\u200c was: What protections do Americans have\u2064 to stop the\u2064 government from\u200c throwing\u200d them out\u200d of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/secret-censors-babylon-bee-ceo-thinks-facebook-is-moving-beyond-news-to-suppress-wrong-kind-of-comedy\/\" title=\"Secret Censors: Babylon Bee CEO Thinks Facebook Is Moving Beyond News to Suppress Wrong Kind Of Comedy\">modern public square<\/a> of social media by pressuring Big Tech \u2064companies to do what \u200cthe government is absolutely prohibited from doing under the Constitution?<\/p>\n<p>The government\u2019s \u2063position at the hearing and throughout the litigation is that it was just talking. It \u2062pretends\u200c that a long-term effort to threaten social media companies with removing protections from litigation, and new theories or laws regarding \u2063anti-trust, and intimidating\u2062 visits from the FBI starting as early as 2017, coupled with\u200c constant hectoring from multiple government actors \u2014 \u2064with threats\u200b always in the background \u2014 do not amount to coercion, or even encouragement, of censorship by those\u200c companies. This position was met with skepticism by the \u200bcourt.<\/p>\n<p>The government\u2019s attorney was peppered with questions about the vast amount of evidence that the government\u2062 treated \u2063the social media companies like its servants. One judge asked whether the emails sounded like a boss\u2063 talking to an errant employee. Another asked whether the tone of the government was not like that of mob bosses in the movies: \u201cNice <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-new-acting-attorney-general-jeff-rosen-recently-wrote-an-essay-on-foreign-influence-in-us-elections-this-tells-us-a-little-about-his-knowledge-of-whats-going-on-today\/\" title=\"The New Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen Recently Wrote an Essay on Foreign Influence in US Elections \u2013 This Tells Us A Little About His Knowledge of What\u2019s Going On Today\">social media platform<\/a> you have there. A shame if anything\u200b were to happen to it.\u201d The Court also asked\u200b if the government was meeting with the social media companies\u200b in the same way even now, and the\u2064 answer was essentially \u201cyes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The government explained that all these calls and \u2063emails and meetings were really just conversations where they\u2064 sometimes agreed and sometimes disagreed, but nothing coercive occurred. Judge Willett, alluding to\u200d some of the saltier language from \u200cthe White \u2063House to a social media platform, asked whether the F-bombs in the emails were not meant to be intimidating.\u2062 The government\u2064 replied that, while it might have been in bad taste, that \u200cemail was not urging censorship.<\/p>\n<p>The backstory to it is incredible. The Biden White House\u200c had been\u200c hectoring social media companies to censor \u201cmisinformation superspreaders\u201d about Covid-19. In response, an algorithm\u2063 had been\u200c created that assumed those posting obsessively about the subject were likely \u201csuperspreaders of misinformation.\u201d The White House\u2019s account was caught and censored by the very censorship mechanism the White House \u200dhad insisted upon! Upon discovery, Rob Flaherty of \u200dthe White House sent a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/in-landmark-free-speech-case-fifth-circuit-judge-likens-government-coercion-of-big-tech-to-mob-boss\/\" title=\"Fifth Circuit Judge compares government coercion of Big Tech to a 'mob' boss in landmark free speech case.\">profanity-laced screed demanding<\/a>\u200d this action be reversed!\u2062 It\u2019s one thing to censor \u2062regular Americans and treat their \u200cFirst Amendment rights like dirt at our command, but when it happens to us it\u2019s an outrage!<\/p>\n<p>Speaking for the plaintiffs, attorney John Sauer \u200bexplained to the court that if the government had threatened booksellers with all kinds of government action and then\u2064 demanded that books \u200bthat \u200ccriticized it be burned, everyone would recognize the First Amendment violation. If they said they were just talking and \u2062having discussions, no court would believe it. He noted that the timeline of the pressure campaign and the long \u2063campaign by the government to insinuate itself into every decision regarding \u201ccontent moderation\u201d that a platform made created \u200dan easy case for an injunction. The court questioned him on the standing of the parties\u2063 to sue and the \u2062scope of\u2064 the injunction, but in contrast to the government,\u2063 the questions did not go to the heart of the relief that had been granted.<\/p>\n<p>In short, for the First Amendment and the right of \u200bAmericans to enter the modern public square of the internet without fear of \u2063government censorship, it seemed like a good\u2063 day. We shall see if this is borne out by the court\u2019s eventual opinion.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>John J. Vecchione is a Senior Litigation Counsel for\u2064 the non-profit New Civil Liberties Alliance representing \u200bclients against the Administrative State.<\/p>\n<div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently deliberated whether the federal government can compel social media companies to remove undesirable views from their platforms. The government&#8217;s expedited appeal of the July 4th ruling raised concerns about coercion, cajoling, encouragement, threats, and browbeating tactics employed by various agencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2299,"featured_media":2001115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2001114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2001114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2001115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2001114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2001114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2001114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}