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Yes, leadership counts. Why state the obvious? Because there are still moderate, reasonable liberals out there that I know will vote for Biden. No matter how much they suffer, no matter the number of wars, the environmental pollution from the wars, high prices, and more, these people will still support Biden. I can only imagine how bad it really has to get before they vote for someone else.

Ronna McDaniel Wow. That was fast. I got whiplash watching that trainwreck. Once again, the leftists on NBC simply cannot tolerate anyone, not even one, dissenting voice or person of reason that might disagree with them. And it clearly shows the inmates are running the asylum.

Dane County Board And much like NBC and McDaniel, the liberals that control 36 seats out of 37 (yes, its one of the largest boards in the nation, and no, they shouldnt be proud of that) cant stand the idea of even a single voice of dissent on the board, so they are trying hard to get rid of the only conservative voice, Jeff Weigand, District 20. Think about that. Theyre so obsessed with promoting their leftist agenda that they cant let anyone disagree with their false facts and fake news. For anyone who lived when the Soviet Union and East Germany existed, you know what I mean, but our younger generation must be told stories about those times for them to learn.

I visited East Germany within months of the Berlin Wall coming down; we slept overnight in a hotel (if you can call it that) in East Berlin. What an experience. The left on our county board reminds me so much of East Germany and the Stasi. You werent allowed to say even a single word that disagreed with the states stated position, or you would be disappeared. We drove through (for 30 miles) a Soviet military base in East Germany. (The base was so big that they provided a road through the middle (fenced in) to allow drives to cut through. Soviet soldiers were standing around, not sure what to do because they hadnt been ordered home yet.

The rule for leftists is always to eliminate any dissenting voice because one lone voice can rally the people to rise and overthrow their dictator rulers. There was no free speech, in fact, no speech of any kind, period. No free assembly, no free press, no freedom at all. You did what the state told you to do, or you were gone.

Same with the Dane County board, they simply cannot allow Weigand to call out their false claims, to lie to the public, to manipulate, etc. How ironic for those who claim to want diversity to not allow any diversity of thought or speech. Sorry Jeff, theres no DEI to step in and protect you as a conservative minority on the board.

But were here to support that lone voice. Stand up and be heard. Scream it out from the balconies. Dont give any ground. TikTok Some people argue that threatening to ban TikTok or forcing the Communist party to sell it (divest) is an infringement on TikToks right to free speech. While corporations are recognized as people under the Constitution, TikTok, and its Chinese Communist Party owners are not entitled to protection under our Constitution.

They are not citizens of the U.S., and the company is not headquartered here (regardless of what they say, decision-making is made in China by the communist party owners.) To give TikTok the same rights as U.S. citizens would be to allow the company and the CCP to also issue open records requests of our government and make all kinds of demands on our government and life in the U.S. that they themselves would never allow in China.

Dont be fooled, the CCP is not entitled to rights that they themselves dont give others nor do they believe in such rights. Were at war with these people, not just over our culture, but for the freedom and liberty of the world. Dont play by their rules.

Gun Control Have you ever noticed that the highest crime areas are where the most restricted gun control exists? (Likewise, with the denial of your second amendment rights.) Illinois, New York, Mexico, and other locations allow gangs and cartels (in cahoots with government officials) to carry guns and terrorize residents, but residents are not allowed to carry a gun to defend themselves.

Government Censorship The Supreme Court case involving Crazy Uncle Joes administration conspiring with the tech oligarchs to censor Bidens opposition, raised the question of when does government pressure on social media companies amount to free speech or coercion. If I heard this right, one lefty Supreme Court justice argued that restraining the government from having tech companies do its censoring for the government would be infringing on the governments right to free speech.

Excuse me? Now, shes no dummy, so that means shes deliberately trying to deceive the American public. The First Amendment was created to restrain exactly this kind of government action; it was written to protect the public from the heavy hand of government. The liberals are trying to turn that upside down by twisting the Constitution to try to protect the governments heavy hand at the cost of censoring us.

When the government suggests that a company do something, its always coercion because its the government. Its no different than the mob asking your store to make weekly payments for your security and well-being; we all know what will happen if we dont and the payments arent voluntary just because they ask nice.

Haiti Well, I never anticipated another war this time right out our back door in Haiti. What else can go wrong under Bidens leadership? Its a small island, err, excuse me, half an island, not far off our coastline. But you know Biden, Mr. Do Nothing Until Its Too Late and then make excuses. Hell wait until it really gets bad, and then Blinkidy-blank will write another stern letter to the criminal gang leader. Ooo, scary. Im sure the guy is shaken in his boots.

If Biden waits long enough, which I am sure is his plan, he can count on millions of Haitian refugees flooding our shores. (I hope DeSantis has a backup plan.) Next stop, Taiwan or Korea.

State Senate & LobbyistsHuntsman, the former governor of Utah, said, You dont have to agree on everything to work together on something.

RealtorsRealtors are forgetting about the recent run-up in home prices, pushing pricing 30%50% or even 70% higher in many cases. That means that if the same percent commission is applied, Realtors will receive a much larger dollar commission amount on those higher prices. The good news for home consumers is that commissions should start to come down.

UW System President Rothman is closing campuses that are not operationally feasible any longer due to declining enrollment. Good. Campuses that cant attract customers should be closed. Why should taxpayers keep funding universities that are failing? Its like any government program; once the money starts flowing, its almost impossible to cut it off when the need is no longer there. In contrast, Greg Lampe and Steven Wildeck, both former vice-chancellors, argue against the closings. Seriously? The brainwashing at the university system has become so outrageous that the university elites have become a cancer on our children.

The good news is that fewer young adults will be suckered into taking on massive debt to be able to attend overpriced, sub-tier universities, and instead will make the wise choice to attend a tech school or start their careers without a higher degree.

Watergate The Biden family crime syndicate and its receipt of foreign money and failure to pay taxes on it and the conflicts of interest it creates, and oh yea, the attempted cover ups (and actual cover ups for years interfering with the justice department investigations) is far, far worse than Watergate. Watergate was a simple, straightforward but botched break-in of the Democratic Party headquarters with a superficial coverup. Bidengate is far more extensive, more complicated, involving foreign government payments, foreign corporation payments, Bidens own bragging that he got a Ukraine prosecutor fired to stop the guy from pursuing charges against his son, Hunter Biden, is proof enough. The constant, years-long cover-up, not to mention the faux Russian hoax put out by the Democrat Party, are all part of it. Shall I go on?

BoeingHow bad does this have to get? Remember when Boeing moved its headquarters to Chicago, away from its manufacturing base? Now I hear theyre moving the headquarters again. When they announced their move to Chicago (who on earth would move to Chicago?), I speculated that they would lose track of their manufacturing and suffer the consequences.

Now that has come true. When the leaders move away from the base of the real operations and they wont spend time walking the plant floor, theyre bound to lose oversight. Im sure some bean counter thought it would yield big savings by moving a lot of their manufacturing overseas too. Of course, prior management got rewarded by boosting the stock price by reducing costs (temporarily), but now everyone is suffering as a result of that shortsighted decision.

COVID Well, the real data is finally out. Kids got hurt badly during the COVID / government mandated shut-downs. Well, dah.

Housing & Biden Attacks Now Biden is attacking landlords, a/k/a, you know, those evil guys and gals that actually provide housing for the rest of us. He claims they are conspiring to charge more. First, theres no conspiring going on, because that would be anti-trust. Every landlord knows they cant talk about rents to another competing landlord. Second, you, Mr. Biden, caused the higher rents. Stop blaming others for your screw-ups.

DEI In Business magazine had an interesting article on 40 Under 40 and one of them, Dr. William T.L. Cox has a consultant company that provides an evidence-based approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Hmm, okay, what does that mean? Cox says evidence shows that the $8 billion DEI industry (yes, $8 with a B) has little meaningful impact.

Interestingly, so heres a so-called expert saying that DEI is really a bunch of crap. My words, not his. I give him credit for trying to improve it, but in reality, what this really says is that DEI is not needed, is a waste of taxpayer money, and worse, that there is a massive industry built up around it now that will be difficult to take down. Scary sh*t.

California and Squatters Only in California; squatters (i.e. trespassers and criminals) are pushing homeowners out of their own homes by breaking in and taking over their homes. Supposedly, homeless people and illegal aliens are doing this, which means this problem stems directly from Bidens open border policy. My thought boot them out at gunpoint and dont call the police. Im so sick of criminals being protected while good, honest, hard-working people suffer.

Wisconsin Right Now is a news organization focused on covering the news from a conservative point of view, in particular on politics and policy issues through analysis and opinions, and is protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. WRN and the columnist does not make endorsements of candidates or urge a vote for or against any candidate or issue. On October 18 and November 23, 2023 Donald Trump tweeted out on Trumps Truth Social account T. Walls October 6th column on Trumps property valuations. T. Wall holds a degree from the UW in economics and an M.S. in real estate analysis and valuation and is a real estate developer. Disclaimer: The opinions of the writer are not necessarily those of this publication or the left!

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How the Left Censors Dissent, From NBC to the Dane County Board [Up Against the Wall] - Wisconsin Right Now

Censorship can lead to some funny designs, even when there isn't a comedian involved. So when the person being censored is a standup comic, we could only expect an entertaining response.

Posters advertising Ed Gamble's London tour dates fell foul of Transport for London's (TfL) ban on junk food advertising because they featured a hot dog in reference to the title of the show, Hot Digitty Dog. The comedian has found a suitably ridiculous solution to allow the posters to be put up on the underground network, and it's an even better poster design than the original.

In the original poster, which has been used to promote Gamble's tour around the UK, the comedian and The Off Menu podcast host was pictured with mustard and ketchup on his face and T-Shirt with a hot dog on a plate in front of him. However, TfL said that the hot dog would have to be removed or obscured for the poster to be allowed on the London Tube because of an anti-junk food policy.

TfL introduced a ban on junk food advertising in 2019 in a bid to reduce childhood obesity. In this case, the poster is not advertising junk food, but it seems the network's ban covers any imagery of unhealthy snacks regardless of what is being promoted. Gamble's solution was to doctor the design to replace the offending banger with a cucumber, perhaps using Photoshop Generative Fill.

TfL told me I couldnt have a hot dog on my poster to promote my Hackney Empire shows in June.I guess Im dangerous? So Ive replaced it with a cucumber. Eat your greens, kids," Gamble wrote on Instagram.

It resulting scene looks particularly incongruous. Cucumber with the mustard and sauce? One fan pointed out on Instagram that the result is an image where the comedian appears to have finished a meal without eating his greens.

A TfL spokesman said: We welcome all advertising on our network that complies with our published guidance. Following a review of the advert, we advised that elements would need to be removed or obscured to ensure it complied with our policy. A revised advert is now running on the network and we are always happy to work with people to ensure adverts follow our policy.

Daily design news, reviews, how-tos and more, as picked by the editors.

However some people argue that the ban is hypocritical when brands such as Greggs and Lola's Cupcakes are allowed to run stores in Tube stations.

For more entertaining censorship, see HBO's censored movie posters and the California police's Lego mugshots. Need to censor your own designs? See today's best Photoshop deals in your region below, or see our guide to how to download Photoshop for more details.

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UK comedian Photoshops poster to hilariously sidestep censors - Creative Bloq

The Zone of Interest (2023) was one of the most introspective films of the year, noting the intricate dangers of ignoring atrocities as it delves into the complex psychology of individuals at the hands of such horrors. The films director, Jonathan Glazer, took the stage at this years Oscars to condemn the brutal war currently being waged on Gaza.

Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, Glazer said.

In the two weeks since his speech, Glazer has been met with a wave of criticism and backlash from peers, leading to a growing sentiment of him being blacklisted by the industry. This hatred is being directly fueled by reporters misquoting Glazer and intentionally ending the quote after refute their Jewishness to make his statement seem antisemitic, when in reality Glazer was using his Jewish heritage as reasoning to showcase sympathy for horrendous atrocities.

While the Oscars official YouTube channel has posted every winning speech of the night, Glazers speech remains conspicuously absent. The censorship of Glazers words raises questions about the extent to which powerful interests can silence dissenting voices, even in a space that prides itself on pushing boundaries and challenging norms. The suppression of support for Palestine is becoming exceedingly pervasive and overt in multiple mediums.

The United States House of Representatives recently passed a bill to ban TikTok, citing safety concerns and data breaches linked to its parent company, ByteDance, which is owned by Chinese nationals. However, its worth noting that despite collecting more data than TikTok, Facebook and Google have never faced calls for an outright ban or even similar scrutiny.

Some lawmakers appear to actually be concerned with TikTok users fervent support for Palestine and their use of the platform for organizing. Legislators such as Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley have even outright declared that TikToks pro-Palestinian advocacy justifies a ban in the U.S., a stance that may be influenced by the substantial $58 million in lobbying support from pro-Israel donors that American lawmakers received in the past election cycle.

Instagrams recent decision to, by default and without notice, restrict political content from accounts you dont follow may be an even more significant infringement than data collection. This decision could prevent critical political issues from reaching a more neutral audience who dont willingly seek out political content, as it relies on users actively changing their settings to view such content, effectively censoring important discourse and stifling expression on the platform.

In universities, which have long been centers of American political activism, the freedom of faculty to participate in politics is under scrutiny. The University of California Board of Regents is being pressured by pro-Israel lawmakers to consider a policy that would regulate how academic departments can express political views on university websites, including a prohibition on posting such statements on their primary pages.

It is evident that there is a deliberate attempt to suppress dissent against the violence Palestine currently faces. This raises a significant question: Why is there no space for accountability, discussion or even a voice that isnt staunchly pro-Israel when it comes to Palestine?

The situation in Gaza is rapidly deteriorating, with the death toll surpassing 30,000, the majority of which are women and children. In the face of this incredible violence, government entities, social media platforms and academic institutions continue to staunchly support Israel. This backing is largely fueled by monetary and political interests in the form of lobbying efforts and pro-Israel influence within universities.

The unified front of support for Israel from some of the highest ranking positions of power in the U.S. underscores a chilling reality: the bodies of Palestinians are being deemed expendable, especially in the face of immeasurable greed. People in these positions of power are encroaching on new levels of censorship that directly breach the rights of citizens to speak freely or even show an ounce of support for Palestine.

The American people must staunchly oppose any attempts to curtail our freedoms and must persist in championing the rights of Palestinians, which are intertwined with our own. In a world rife with ongoing injustices and violence, powerful entities will always seek to conceal such atrocities. In this instance, it is up to the American people. We possess voices to speak up for voiceless Palestinians, and we must resist with unwavering determination.

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Censorship is only getting worse in the US - Daily Trojan Online

Avril Haines, the US director of national intelligence, said recently that officials cant rule out the possibility of China using TikTok to influence the 2024 election. Plenty of others have expressed their alarm about the ways China could use TikTok to undermine our national security.

Just one problem: the First Amendment doesnt allow censorship just in case. It was downright reckless for the House to pass legislation to effectively ban TikTok the day after Hainess comments, without any proof of the kind of imminent and grave threat that the Constitution would require to justify that kind of unprecedented mass censorship.

TikTok is used by around 150 million Americans. That includes President Joe Biden, as well as plenty of journalists who use the platform to report and to find stories and sources. Independent journalist Jonathan Katz, for example, used TikTok to expose misleading information from Sen. Katie Britts State of the Union rebuttal. Banning TikTok is, in effect, a prior restraint on all of that journalism, with no regard for whether it contains Chinese propaganda.

Heres what else cant be ruled out: that banning TikTok, based on its alleged surveillance and propagandizing of Americans, will set a precedent for all sorts of future censorship, including bans on foreign news sites. And yes, forcing a sale of TikTok is effectively a ban. Imagine the government ordering The Guardian to sell itself to an approved buyer.

If the US government bullying or banning a British newspaper sounds unlikely, what about media owned by current US adversaries, like Russian-owned RT? Some countries banned it when Russia invaded Ukraine. The US did not, presumably because officials recognized the Constitution wouldnt tolerate that. Why cant the same logic behind banning TikTok, which by all current indications China does not own, support banning RT, which Russia does?

And while RT is a uniquely unsympathetic outlet, the slope gets slippery from there. Consider Qatari-funded Al Jazeera. Surely it has plenty of information on the viewing and clicking habits of the millions of Americans who read it online. And the Biden administration is concerned enough about its influence that it has reportedly pressured it to turn down the volume of its criticism of Israel. A future administration could easily view that as ban-worthy.

The concern that censorship could spread beyond TikTok is heightened because the bill the House passed allows for future bans of not just other social media applications but any platform allowing user interaction that the president deems a threat to national security. At least for other platforms, the president is required to issue a report describing the specific national security concern justifying censorship (with the details likely hidden in a classified annex).

The criteria are shockingly vague, but at least its more than the cant rule it out reasoning for censoring TikTok, regarding which no president has issued any such report. The double standard is an implicit admission by the bills drafters that the speculation-based TikTok ban is constitutionally inadequate.

The reality is that even definitive proof that a platform is propagandizing or surveilling Americans wouldnt justify censorship. The Pentagon Papers case established that national security isnt a magic word that nullifies the First Amendmentand there, the alleged threat was to troops lives, not college kids political thought. Nonetheless, Justice Hugo Black explained that the word security is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment.

Years before that, the Supreme Court rejected a law delaying mail containing communist political propaganda. The Supreme Court said the law was at war with the uninhibited, robust, and wide-open debate and discussion that are contemplated by the First Amendment. But even that unconstitutional law was narrow compared with a complete ban on TikTok, which would prevent millions of Americans from using their preferred medium to speak online.

In other words, Americans have the right to consume foreign propaganda if they choose, and foreigners dont need to stay on US politicians good side to be able to speak to Americans. Thats why courts have rejected the Trump administrations efforts to ban TikTok (Trump has since reversed himself, and now opposes a ban) as well as the state of Montanas prohibition.

The TikTok ban is far more problematic than the communist mail delay because its not the least bit targetedit seeks to shutter TikToks whole operation. The Supreme Court has also rejected efforts to shut down entire bookstores and media outlets, even if they allegedly carried some illegal content. Lawmakers arent even claiming that TikToks content is illegal, just that they dislike some of it for being false or misleading.

Sure, TikTok is used to spread lies. Thats true of every social media outlet. But Congress could reduce Americans susceptibility to disinformation by cutting down on excessive government secrecy, which breeds conspiracy theories and distrust. That would not only be more effective than censorship but would strengthen, not undermine, First Amendment freedoms. TikTokers might not have been so fascinated by Osama bin Ladens ridiculous and genocidal manifesto if they hadnt been raised on they hate us for our freedom.

After all, while TikTok (and any other social media platform) can be abused to spread foreign propaganda, it is also a helpful tool in combating domestic propaganda. Could our government have misled Americans about the Vietnam War nearly as effectively if TikTok existed?

Perhaps because the propaganda justification for the ban is so flimsy, lawmakers have raised the alarm about Chinese surveillance of TikTok users as a fallback basis for censorship. Those claims are every bit as nebulous. If that were really the concern, Congress would pass a data privacy law binding American platforms too, as well as data brokers that TikTok could continue to buy Americans data from even after a ban. No one can explain how TikTok user data in the hands of Chinese spies would justify an unprecedented prior restraint, particularly when they can easily get the same data elsewhere.

Former Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, who wants to buy TikTok, says theres no way that the Chinese would ever let a US company own something like this in China. Its true that China bans US platforms. But the US shouldnt be resorting to stooping to authoritarians levels, and thats exactly why a bill that kicks open the door for it to do just that is so troubling. Russia, for example, recently declared US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty an undesirable organization, requiring it to stop all work inside Russia. By banning TikTok, the US lowers its moral standing to oppose those kinds of shameful antics.

If the Senate passes this unconstitutional TikTok ban, and the White House lets it stand, then what we really cant rule out is the US becoming every bit as censorial as the adversaries it claims to be defending us against.

Originally posted here:
TikTok ban forgets the lessons of the Pentagon Papers - Columbia Journalism Review

This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated.

Ryan Knutson: When the baseball star Hank Aaron died in 2021 at the age of 86, people took to social media to remember his legendary career. Some posted about his legacy as a civil rights icon. Others posted about his incredible swing and how he held the career home run record for more than three decades. But there was one tweet that caused a firestorm. It was from the politician Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who suggested that Aaron's death was caused by the COVID vaccine. He said, "Hank Aaron's tragic death is part of a wave of suspicious deaths among elderly, closely following administration of COVID vaccines." The Biden administration asked Twitter to remove Kennedy's tweet, which the company did. It was one of many posts the government asked social media sites to take down during the pandemic. Now, the administration's effort to go after what it saw as misinformation online is under the spotlight of the Supreme Court, in a case known as Murthy versus Missouri. It's one of the biggest tests of the First Amendment in years.

Jess Bravin: This is a case about what the plaintiffs call censorship and what the government calls guidance.

Ryan Knutson: That's our colleague Jess Bravin. He covers the Supreme Court and was listening as the justices heard oral arguments earlier this week. So what would you say is the central question at the heart of this case?

Jess Bravin: The central question is where is the line between expressing an opinion and censoring speech?

Ryan Knutson: Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knutson. It's Thursday, March 21st. Coming up on the show, should the government be allowed to ask social media platforms to remove content? The fight against misinformation online goes back years. But in 2021, as the pandemic was killing thousands of Americans each week, the issue took on new urgency. The newly elected Biden administration said bad information put people at risk. Officials reached out to social media companies and asked them to take action on posts they viewed as problematic.

Jess Bravin: There were several types of posts that officials objected to, but the most important one from the government's point of view was generating fear of vaccines. The government believed that vaccines and mass vaccination was the way to get the pandemic under control and that having millions and millions of people fearful of vaccines would be devastating to public health. And there were some very prominent people who had a different point of view and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr is of course one of them.

Ryan Knutson: Kennedy, who tweeted about Hank Aaron, has been a long time critic of vaccines. For the record, the medical examiner said Aaron died of natural causes. The Biden administration also asked social media sites to remove posts that said the virus was manmade, that criticized lockdowns, or that questioned the efficacy of masks.

Jess Bravin: The government would sometimes flag specific posts and point them out to their contacts at the social media platforms and say, "We think this one's a problem." They also liked to talk to the platforms about the algorithms they were using to identify problematic information and, "How are you sorting it? How are you filtering it? How are you finding it?" And this was public. I mean, there were news articles about it in 2021. It wasn't this was like some classified thing. The government's fairly open about complaining about bad information moving across social media platforms.

Ryan Knutson: But some people, Republicans in particular, didn't like what the government was doing. And in 2022, the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, along with other individuals, sued the Biden administration. Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General under Biden, was named as a lead defendant. The plaintiffs alleged the government's actions amounted to censorship. What was this case's path to the Supreme Court?

Jess Bravin: Well, the case was filed in a courthouse in Monroe, Louisiana where there is a Trump appointed judge who was expected to be very sympathetic to this argument. The attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana asserted the right to protect the interests of the residents of those states, saying those residents, either their views might be suppressed by this illegal censorship, or alternatively their right to read or hear or learn things was being interfered with by this censorship.

Ryan Knutson: On July 4th last year, that judge ruled in favor of Louisiana and Missouri.

Jess Bravin: He issued a sweeping opinion calling this an Orwellian form of censorship that the government was imposing on Americans.

Ryan Knutson: The government appealed the ruling and eventually it made its way up to the Supreme Court this week.

Speaker 3: We'll hear argument first this morning in case 23411 Murthy versus Missouri.

Ryan Knutson: Okay, so what were Louisiana and Missouri's main arguments in this case?

Jess Bravin: The Solicitor General of Louisiana who argued this case for all the plaintiffs said that, "Okay, the government has a right to express an opinion. It has a right to use the bully pulpit and say, 'Americans, don't listen to that foolish information or whatever,' but they don't have the right to say to a publisher or a platform, 'Take down that information. Take down that post.'" Their argument is that when the government takes that step, it crosses into coercion, and coercion of private speech is not permitted under the First Amendment.

Speaker 4: The government has no right to persuade platforms to violate Americans' Constitutional rights. And pressuring platforms in back rooms shielded from public view is not using the bully pulpit at all. That's just being a bully.

Ryan Knutson: I mean, did they have evidence to support that the government was being coercive or forcing them to do it?

Jess Bravin: Well, it's an implication. The implication is that the government has behind it the ability to take all kinds of serious steps against these private companies. And the theory of this case is that when White House officials or people in the Surgeon General's office or at the FBI call Facebook and say, "Take down these posts or don't let this known purveyor of disinformation continue to spread these dangerous theories about COVID," when they do that, they carry with them the implication of retaliation if there isn't compliance, because there could be an antitrust investigation, there could be the White House supporting legislation that would be bad for some of these companies. All those things lurk, at least in theory, in the background. The Louisiana argument, the argument of the plaintiffs, is that this was a kind of pervasive behind the scenes campaign that really left these platforms no choice but to comply.

Ryan Knutson: So what was the Biden Administration's defense?

Jess Bravin: The Biden administration said that, "What we did regarding these COVID posts is no different from what the government has done for decades and decades and decades."

Speaker 5: I think the idea that there'd be back and forth between the government and the media isn't unusual at all when the White House-

Jess Bravin: And government officials are not shy about telling the media when they think they got something wrong or asking them not to publish something or saying, "This person you're relying on is a known charlatan or is a foreign agent," or something like that, "and you shouldn't print that." So they say there are many, many times that you've heard government officials say publicly that they don't like certain things that were published or that TV networks shouldn't run certain shows or shouldn't propel certain storylines on the news or what have you.

Ryan Knutson: The government says it's done this in situations involving national security or war and that this kind of back and forth should be allowed because it's necessary to keep the public safe.

Jess Bravin: From the government's point of view, they have an obligation to protect the public and to prevent the spread of dangerous information that misleads people, and particularly in the context of the COVID pandemic, where public health depended on a critical mass of people obtaining vaccinations in order to stop the spread of this sometimes deadly disease, interfering with the vaccination program, based on completely unsupported theories, was a danger to the nation. It was an emergency. It was a literal public health emergency that required people to know what the actual risks were, and the government says they have to take steps to do that.

Ryan Knutson: Coming up, how the Supreme Court justices responded to these arguments. Our colleague Jess says that many of the justices seem receptive to the government's argument that there is and always has been a normal back and forth between officials and the press. What were you able to tell about how the Supreme Court justices who were hearing these arguments were responding to them?

Jess Bravin: It seemed to me that most of the justices found the plaintiff's arguments problematic, from a number of reasons. Some of the justices seemed to have personal experience in dealing with the media. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Justice Elena Kagan, and Chief Justice John Roberts all worked in the White House for one President of one party or another and all of them seem to recall their own interactions or the interactions of the press staff with the news media and occasions where they reached out to complain about certain stories, complained about certain information that was being published, and urge reporters or editors not to publish it. And Justice Kavanaugh, for instance, he likened it, he said he had a national security analogy.

Justice Kavanaugh: Probably not uncommon for government officials to protest an upcoming story on surveillance or detention policy and say, "If you run that, it's going to harm the war effort and put Americans at risk."

Jess Bravin: And so they seemed to be thinking about, "Well, I used to complain all the time about stuff I didn't like being published and I didn't see any problem with it." And they seemed to believe it was just a feature of the way the government works and the way our democracy works.

Ryan Knutson: Were there camps that seemed to emerge among the justices on this issue or did it seem that they were more uniformly skeptical?

Jess Bravin: In this instance, it seemed that most of the court was leaning toward the government's view of these kinds of interactions being allowable. The only justice who appeared very skeptical of the Biden administration's position was Justice Samuel Alito. He said he looked at these kinds of emails and these communications and the tenor of the language used by government officials, and he said, "The White House is treating Facebook as a subordinate." It's basically asking, "Why haven't you shown us? Why are you hiding the ball from us?"

Justice Alito: They 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, our representatives over there."

Jess Bravin: And he said he couldn't imagine that that is the kind of interaction that the White House has with the New York Times or The Wall Street Journal or The Associated Press or other major news organizations and from his point of view, this was not like the traditional back and forth between the news media and the government. This was something that looked different.

Ryan Knutson: The ruling is expected to come by July. What will it mean for the future of misinformation on the internet if Louisiana wins or if the US government wins?

Jess Bravin: Well, if the US government wins, firstly, it depends on what the US government wants to do. I mean, who controls the US government is up to the voters this November. And so a lot of it depends on that. Were this challenge to succeed, I think that you will see a much more freewheeling internet because one of the checks on what appears on social media will be gone. Or is the government's ability to influence what appears on social media will be significantly reduced. Now, whether that has a good or bad effect obviously depends on where you stand.

Ryan Knutson: Murthy versus Missouri is one of several cases involving free speech and online content moderation that the Supreme Court is taking on this year. For example, last month, the justice has heard challenges to laws in Florida and Texas that seek to limit how much social media companies can moderate people's posts.

Jess Bravin: The other major cases involving free speech in the internet also come out of the same view by some people on the right that social media platforms are censoring their views ,are keeping their ideas out of the public discourse. And this particularly came into focus when Facebook and Twitter blocked Donald Trump after they viewed his role in the January 6th attack on the US Capitol as violating their policies or the things that he was tweeting and posting were violating their policies against inciting violence or unlawful conduct or what have you. So that really crystallized for some conservatives the idea that our opinions and our views and our perspective is being blocked by these social media platforms.

Ryan Knutson: Have all these cases had an impact on how social media platforms and also the government are approaching misinformation on their platforms and policing it this year?

Jess Bravin: Well, the government pulled back on some of these encounters because they are facing this type of legal assault. I think for the social media platforms, I mean, they are very powerful. They are ubiquitous for many Americans. And they are facing a range of pressure. I mean, at the same time that they face complaints that they're taking down too many posts, they're also facing complaints that they're allowing up too many dangerous posts. I mean, they are in a position, that they certainly worked hard to achieve, that makes them central to a lot of the discourse in the United States and therefore they get pressure from all sides.

Ryan Knutson: That's all for today, Thursday, March 21st. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Jan Wolfe and Jacob Gershman. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.

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Is Fighting Misinformation Censorship? The Supreme Court Will Decide. - The Journal. - WSJ Podcasts - The Wall Street Journal