by David Carlton
The First Amendment is under assault by the very people entrusted to protect it. The Biden administration and the corporate media removed any doubt about this after a July 4 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty. Evidence revealed during the discovery process in Missouri v. Biden convinced the judge that administration officials illegally pressured social media platforms to censor disfavored views. Doughty issued a 155-page opinion and an injunction prohibiting federal officials from “pressuring or coercing social-media companies in any manner to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce posted content of postings containing protected free speech.”
The White House’s response to Judge Doughty’s injunction was generally dismissive. As Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre phrased it on July 5, “We are going to continue to promote responsible actions to protect public health, safety and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our election.” The Biden Justice Department asked the court to stay the injunction, characterizing it as “ambiguous” and “vague,” while insisting that it lacks “clarity with respect to what the injunction does not prohibit.” This last claim is patently false. In reality, Judge Doughty explicitly designates eight crucial interactions with social media companies that are not prohibited by the injunction.
This brings us to similarly disingenuous claims made by the corporate media concerning the injunction. The Washington Post, for example, suggests that Doughty has undone years of legal cooperation between the government and social media: “For more than a decade, the federal government has attempted to work with social media companies to address criminal activity, including child sexual abuse images and terrorism.” In fact, the first item on the list of interactions not prohibited by the injunction states that the government may inform social media companies of postings involving criminal activity. This has not, of course, insulated Judge Doughty from attacks by far-left publications such as the Nation:
Doughty was appointed to the federal bench by President Donald Trump in 2017, and his lengthy opinion supporting the injunction is a work of pure MAGA delirium. He announces at the outset that, should the plaintiffs prove their claims, “the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.” How likely is Doughty to find said case to be proven? Well, this likely: “During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’”
The justification for such smears involves the purported need to protect the public from “disinformation.” The New York Times explains, “The case, which could alter how the government battles disinformation, is a flashpoint in a broader effort by conservatives to document what they contend is a liberal conspiracy to silence their views.” The Times goes on to accuse Doughty of uncritically accepting disinformation: “Judge Doughty accepted as fact the claim that ‘Covid-19 vaccines do not prevent transmission of the disease.’” The problem? It has long since been demonstrated that the vaccine never prevented transmission of COVID-19. The Times, in this instance, is the very source of disinformation.
All of which raises the following question: What exactly is “disinformation”? It shouldn’t be confused with “misinformation.” The latter involves the unwitting dissemination of false claims. For example, it is an article of faith among progressives that affirmative action benefited black Americans. Yet, the facts don’t support that claim. As Thomas Sowell famously quipped, it was merely “racism under new management.” Disinformation is, however, the knowing repetition of false claims with the intention of deceiving the public. A classic example is the lie, peddled by Anthony Fauci, that lockdowns would slow the spread of COVID-19. Now, as the Wall Street Journal notes, the good doctor is revising history:
Dr. Fauci’s attempt to rewrite pandemic history recalls the classic “Seinfeld” episode in which George Costanza overreacts to a kitchen grease fire at a birthday party and mows down guests as he rushes to escape. “I was trying to lead the way. We needed a leader!” George cries in self-defense. “I was not leaving anyone behind!” The rush by Dr. Fauci and other public-health officials to shut down the economy has left hundreds of thousands of young Americans behind.
Many epidemiologists and scientists, particularly those who signed the Great Barrington Declaration, warned that the lockdowns would be disastrous. They correctly stated that the COVID restrictions advocated by Fauci would not merely fail to accomplish their stated goals but had the potential to produce dangerous public health, social, and economic consequences. Yet, Fauci and his bureaucratic accomplices colluded with the social media companies to make sure their message never reached the wider public. Some were merely “shadow banned.” Others were deplatformed. Even today, most Americans remain unaware of their warnings even as they suffer the lingering consequences of Fauci’s disinformation.
It is difficult to find a better argument for the proposition that censorship is more dangerous than disinformation. The advocates of the latter are always the bad guys, to paraphrase Robert F. Kennedy Jr. This is the historical reality that animates the injunction imposed on the Biden administration by U.S. District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty. Disinformation can be debunked with objective data. Censored speech, by definition, cannot. If the federal government, regardless of which party happens to be in power, is permitted to control what we hear and what we can say aloud, then genuine freedom will become a pathetic fantasy.
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David Catron is a recovering health care consultant and frequent contributor to The American Spectator. You can follow him on Twitter at @Catronicus.
Image “White House Press Sec. Karine Jean-Pierre” by The White House.
