Jonathan Turley skriver om det pres, der er på ytringsfriheden i USA – også i USA, skulle man sige. I USAs Højesteret er der tre sager, der “covers the three areas of greatest concern for the free speech community: censorship, blacklisting and weaponization.”. Den nok væsentligste for os andre, er sagen om myndighederne, der bruger de sociale medier til at censurere borgerne. Omfanget af den praksis, løftede Elon Musk lidt af sløret for, da han gav en håndfuld journalister adgang til dele af Twitters interne korrespondance.

We are now living through one of the most anti-free speech periods in our history. On our campuses, law professors are leading a movement to limit free speech under the pretext of combating hate speech or disinformation. A dangerous triumvirate has formed as government, corporate and academic interests have aligned to push limitations of free expression.

That triumvirate is now before the Supreme Court, which is looking at cases where government officials targeted critics, dissenting websites and revenue sources.

What was disconcerting was to hear many of those same voices from our campuses echoed this week on the court itself.

In Murthy v. Missouri, the court is considering a massive censorship system coordinated by federal agencies and social media companies. This effort was ramped up under President Joe Biden, who is arguably the most anti-free speech president since John Adams. Biden has accused companies of “killing people” by resisting demands to censor opposing views. Even though the administration was dead wrong on many pandemic-related issues, ranging from the origin of COVID-19 to the efficacy of masks, thousands were banned, throttled or blacklisted for pointing this out.

Biden’s sole nominee on the court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, has long been an enigma on the issue of free speech. That is why these oral arguments had some alarming moments. While her two liberal colleagues suggested that some communications may not be coercive as opposed to persuasive, Jackson would have none of it. She believed that coercion is perfectly fine under the right circumstances, including during periods like a pandemic or other national emergencies claimed by the government. When dangerous information is spotted on social media sites in such periods, she seemed to insist, the government should feel free to “tell them to take it down.”

The sweeping quality of Jackson’s remarks shows that the relativistic views of free speech may now have a new champion on the court.

“The government is treating social media platforms like their subordinates.” sagde Højesteretsdommer Alieto, men han var desværre ikke alene. Således sidder derogså Bidens føromtalte Højesteretsdommer Ketanji Brown Jackson, der ikke er nogen fan af ytringsfrihed, har flere noteret sig, som Glenn Greenwalds System Update, der citerede hende for følgende: “My biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways.”. Som System Update pointerer, så er det netop meningen med ytringsfriheden. Greenwald selv kommenterer selv følgende

“She believes… the free speech guarantee is an impediment to the government being able to to do things it needs to do…

I appreciate Justice Brown Jackson for being as explicit as she is. She’s speaking for American liberals here and she’s saying, ‘We can’t allow free speech anymore. It’s too dangerous.’ 

That’s what’s at the heart of this case. That’s what is at the heart of the Biden administration’s behavior.

It’s at the heart of all these laws that countries throughout the democratic world are enacting to control the internet—that they believe free speech is no longer a luxury that we can afford because… disinformation is something that is too dangerous to permit.”

DC Draino manglede tilstrækkeligt med god smag til at kommentere “Remember when Joe Biden said he wanted to hire a Supreme Court Justice based on skin color & not their intelligence?” Muligvis har ingen har turdet stoppe på sin vej op i hierakiet uagtet at inkompetencen tyngede stadigt mere, fordi hun var en sort kvinde. Muligvis er hun bare en radikaler.

Bill Maher konfronterede en af vores teknologiske vogtere over selv ideen om censur

MAHER: “As the years roll by, now we see that the dissenting opinions on a lot of these things were quite the RIGHT ones.”

SWISHER: “We’re not going to know perfectly, but go ahead.”

MAHER: “Okay. But we should have been able to argue about whether it came from a lab, which we weren’t, things like that, natural immunity, whether it was better to go to the beach and get sun and fresh air, as I would have said as opposed to sitting home and day drinking and putting on weight. They never mentioned that obesity was the biggest factor. They have a lot to answer for.”