The Department of Justice announced that a settlement agreement was met concerning censored online speech. The parties agreed that governmental agencies will not threaten social media companies in the future.
Stemming from an executive order issued by President Trump, a settlement was reached in two cases concerning potential online censorship. The heart of the conflict was whether or not governmental agencies threatened social media companies in one manner or another to force them into censoring disfavored speech. The parties stipulated that the named governmental agencies would be barred from such threats. Considering the scores of censorship issues reported on Second Amendment topics, these agreements help set the bar on protecting our First Amendment right to expression of the same.
“The Justice Department this week announced the settlement of litigation alleging that the Biden administration induced social media companies to suppress disfavored speech by American citizens,” the DOJ said in a release. “The lawsuits alleged that inducing social media companies to suppress disfavored speech violated the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
The two lawsuits in question are Missouri v. Biden and Children’s Health Defense v. Biden. Both cases were filed in the Western District of Louisiana. The March 25 announcement coincides with a published order in Missouri et.al. The release notes that “U.S. Government actors likely had caused certain plaintiffs to be deplatformed by major social media companies” and that because of the agreement the government could “avoid the need for continued litigation in” those two cases.
While the aggrieved did not tie any of the alleged censored speech to firearms, the Second Amendment, and/or other liberty-themed speech, this settlement is relevant to publications of all genres, leanings, and opinions.
“The Biden administration coerced social media companies to stifle free speech that they disapproved of,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “These Department of Justice settlements are key steps in undoing those abuses of the First Amendment, especially against conservative media. We will never waver on protecting Americans’ right to speak freely.”
In the background section of the order, it was said that “federal government Defendants unlawfully pressured, coerced, induced, and encouraged major social media platforms to censor their posts about Covid-19, the Hunter Biden laptop report, and the 2020 Presidential election.”
“Plaintiffs initially filed this lawsuit based upon public statements of government officials boasting about working with social media platforms to censor disfavored speech, accompanied by open threats to punish noncompliant companies,” the order says.
When the Biden laptop surfaced via a copy that Rudy Giuliani received and subsequently leaked portions of it to the New York Post, the story was quickly censored by social media companies.
A 2022 Washington Post retrospective on the laptop controversy corroborates the censorship claim and observed that “mainstream outlets and social media companies balked at elevating the story’s claims.” However, the question the Post noted they were not going to answer was: “Was the social media blackout of the Post’s story warranted?”
The Hunter Biden laptop story brought to light Biden’s criminal purchase and possession of a firearm. The fruit bore from the laptop did lead to the eventual conviction of Biden — of which he was pardoned.
The most compelling statements in the order come from the general principles section where it states: “The Parties agree that modern technology does not alter the Government’s obligation to abide by the strictures of the First Amendment.” The parties further “agree that government, politicians, media, academics, or anyone else applying labels such as ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ or ‘malinformation’ to speech does not render it constitutionally unprotected. …”
The injunction specifically orders that:
The Surgeon General, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) (“Enjoined Defendants”), and their employees and agents, shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly-except as authorized by the Constitution, statute, judicial order, or regulation-to threaten Social-Media Companies with some form of punishment (i.e., an adverse legal, regulatory, or economic government sanction) unless they remove, delete, suppress, or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech. Nor shall Enjoined Defendants unilaterally direct or veto social media content moderation decisions of Social Media Companies.
The injunction states that “‘Social Media Companies’ shall include only Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or X, Linkedln, and YouTube.”
This settlement may seem like a nothingburger. Yes, the order comes at the heels of an executive order from President Trump. Yes, the Department of Justice is under the control of the executive branch.
The DOJ agreeing to settle on a case using Trump’s accusations that “the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms” as a lynch pin might look like a weaponization or politicization. However, critics of the Trump Administration have just as much to celebrate as his supporters; the government has stipulated that so-called “misinformation,” “disinformation,” or “malinformation” are speech with First Amendment protections.
Everyone wins.
Will this have an immediate effect? Maybe or maybe not. Second Amendment-related speech, websites, blogs, etc. are still heavily regulated and throttled by big tech. As private businesses that’s their prerogative — as much as pro-liberty forces don’t like it.
The pay off will be a heading off at the pass future governmental overreach. Executive agencies are essentially barred from chilling speech via threats to platforms. Unfortunately, the only way Americans will really be able to tell if there’s meat to this is if they do have their speech rights violated in such a manner again — at which time they’ll find out it’s a paper tiger. Those living in the United States should hope for the best.
Editor’s Note: Second Amendment advocates are hard at work across the country defending our Second Amendment rights through litigation and legislative action, and we won’t be silenced.
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