The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently affirmed an injunction against federal agencies to stop the current White House from colluding with Big Techโs social media.
And now, the Biden Administration is going to the US Supreme Court in a last-ditch attempt to reverse this decision.
The big picture effect โ or at least, the intended meaning โ of the Fifth Circuit ruling was to stop the government from working with Big Tech in censoring online content.
Thereโs little surprise that this doesnโt sit well with that government, which now hopes that the federal appellate courtโs decision can be overturned.
The White House says the ruling is banning its โgoodโ work done alongside social media to combat โmisinformationโ; instead of admitting its actions to amount to collusion with Big Tech โ which has been amply documented now, not least by the Twitter Files โ the government insists its actions are serving the public, and its โabilityโ to discuss relevant issues.
We obtained a copy of the petition for you here.
US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is back again here โ to say that what those now in power in the US (a message amplified by legacy media) did ahead of the 2020 presidential election, as well as subsequently regarding the pandemic โmisinformationโ โ which is now fairly widely accepted to be censorship (โmoderationโ) โ is what Murthy still calls, justified.
By what, though? Because the appellate courtโs ruling looked into the governmentโs โpersuasive actionsโ (and no, youโre not reading a line from a gangster movie script, where โcoercionโ is spelled as, โurgingโ, etc.).
In any case, the appellate court found these actions were in fact coercive and unconstitutional.
Well, Murthy believes the court got it all wrong. The Fifth Circuit is accused of โimproperly applying new and unprecedentedโ remedies. (No โ he was not talking about the Covid vaccine(s). The reference was to the courtโs allegedly flawed โlegal theoriesโ).
Murthy and other administration representatives are telling the Supreme Court that what the Fifth Circuit found to be unconstitutional, was actually โlawful persuasive governmental actions.โ
The โgrandโ argument here is that, historically, US governments have been using free speech as a vehicle to promote their policies. And so โ why would this case of โurgingโ Big Tech be any different?
โThe Biden administrationโs urging of social media platforms to enforce their content moderation policies to combat misinformation and disinformation is no different,โ the government said.