Shocking, indeed.
Did I tell any of you that Facebook has put me in purgatory and Twitter puts a warning on everything I publish.
……………
It turns out that those were the tip of the iceberg. Today, the invaluable New Civil Liberties Allianceissued a press release reporting on a filing relating to discovery disputes in an ongoing matter titled State of Missouri v. Biden.
The plaintiffs in the case are the states of Missouri and Louisiana (represented by their respective Attorneys General) and a group of professors who are the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, represented by the NCLA. The plaintiffs are seeking an injunction prohibiting the federal government from co-ordinating with the social media giants to suppress disfavored political speech. Although the government has resisted discovery, the evidence of massive co-ordination between the government and social media companies to suppress disfavored speech is gradually coming out.
From the press release:
Multiple agencies’ communications demonstrate that the federal government has exerted tremendous pressure on social-media companies—pressure to which companies have repeatedly bowed. Discovery has unveiled an army of federal censorship bureaucrats, including officials arrayed at the White House, HHS, DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, the Office of the Surgeon General, the Census Bureau, the FDA, the FBI, the State Department, the Treasury Department, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Communications show these federal officials are fully aware that the pressure they exert is an effective and necessary way to induce social-media platforms to increase censorship. The head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency even griped about the need to overcome social-media companies’ “hesitation” to work with the government. These actions have precipitated an unprecedented rise in censorship and suppression of free speech—including core political speech—on social-media platforms.
In the discovery filing with the court, the NCLA and its co-counsel refer to the massive federal effort under Biden to suppress disfavored speech as the “Censorship Enterprise.”