Jay Bhattacharya has a recent post at The Free Press about his recent victory in court. During the pandemic, Bhattacharya was one of a small minority of scientists who were willing to speak out against COVID lockdowns and other bad policies. Rather than let scientists debate the pros and cons of the policy, the Federal government pressured social media websites to suppress criticisms of COVID control policies. Here is Bhattacharya:
American government officials, working in concert with big tech companies, have attacked and suppressed my speech and that of my colleagues for criticizing official pandemic policies—criticism that has been proven prescient.
On Friday, at long last, the Fifth Circuit Court ruled that we were not imagining it—that the Biden administration did indeed strong-arm social media companies into doing its bidding. The court found that the Biden White House, the CDC, the U.S. Surgeon General’s office, and the FBI “engaged in a years-long pressure campaign [on social media outlets] designed to ensure that the censorship aligned with the government’s preferred viewpoints.”
Did this campaign work? According to the courts, “the officials’ campaign succeeded. The platforms, in capitulation to state-sponsored pressure, changed their moderation policies.”
You can read Bhattacharya’s article for more details of the court case, but here I want to focus on the mechanism. The courts found that the Federal government threatened social media companies with burdensome regulations unless they created a moderation policy that would suppress speech critical of their preferred COVID policies. The threat of regulation was likely made more serious by the panic of the COVID years.
A lot of people think that regulations will be used by agencies with pure motives. That is often not the case. At a time when we needed open discussion about health policy, the US government decided to suppress debate on the world’s most important social forums.
Bottom line: At a time when we needed more discussion, the US government made the wrong choice.
+++++
Buy these books!
Grad Skool Rulz - cheap ($5) advice manual for grad students
Obama and the antiwar movement
Mike Masnick has some interesting thoughts on that 5th circuit ruling. https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/11/5th-circuit-cleans-up-district-courts-silly-jawboning-ruling-about-the-biden-admin-trims-it-down-to-more-accurately-reflect-the-1st-amendment/