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Government Has No Business Bullying Social Media Platforms on Speech
Legal briefs are usually dry as dust, so delighted laughter is an unusual response to reading one. You can, however, bet dollars to doughnuts that the Supreme Court justices allowed themselves judicious private chuckles when they read one particular amicus (friend of the court) brief in the case concerning which they will hear oral arguments on Monday.
At issue is government behavior that is no laughing matter: secret pressure to suppress speech, and deny access to speech by, Americans, thereby violating the First Amendment. The brief is from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which devotes much time to reminding academics of the First Amendment’s existence.
FIRE notes that some people supporting FIRE’s side of the argument are “oblivious to the irony” of their doing so: Their “head-spinning inconsistencies” involve favoring state governments’ behavior that is similar to the federal government’s behavior that they are deploring. The fundamental facts in Monday’s case are not in dispute. The high-stakes argument concerns the legal significance of how those facts are characterized.
Biden administration officials from the White House, FBI, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal entities persistently contacted social media platforms in attempts to influence the platforms’ dissemination of various posts expressing views the government disliked or that it mincingly deemed “problematic.” Many were concerned with the pandemic and involved supposed “disinformation” (about lockdowns, masks, vaccines, etc.) that turned out to be not merely debatable but true.
Supreme Court Tosses Rulings on Public Officials’ Social Media Blockings
The Supreme Court clarified when public officials can block critical constituents from their personal profiles without violating their constitutional protections in a unanimous decision Friday.
After hearing appeals of two conflicting rulings — one filed against school board members in Southern California and another filed against the city manager of Port Huron, Mich. — the justices provided no definitive resolution to the disputes and instead sent both cases back to lower courts to apply the new legal test.
In a unanimous decision authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the court said state officials cannot block constituents on their personal pages when they have “actual authority to speak on behalf of the State on a particular matter” and “purported to exercise that authority in the relevant posts.”
“For social media activity to constitute state action, an official must not only have state authority — he must also purport to use it,” Barrett wrote.
U.S. Government Mandates Facial Recognition for Migrants Lacking Passports to Board Domestic Flights
The U.S. government has started requiring migrants without passports to submit to facial recognition technology to take domestic flights under a change that prompted confusion this week among immigrants and advocacy groups in Texas.
It is not clear exactly when the change took effect, but several migrants with flights out of South Texas on Tuesday told advocacy groups that they thought they were being turned away. The migrants included people who had used the government’s online appointment system to pursue their immigration cases. Advocates were also concerned about migrants who had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally before being processed by Border Patrol agents and released to pursue their immigration cases.
The Transportation Security Administration told The Associated Press on Thursday that migrants without proper photo identification who want to board flights must submit to facial recognition technology to verify their identity using Department of Homeland Security records.
‘Excess Mortality Skyrocketed’: Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack ‘Criminal’ COVID Response
As the global pandemic unfolded, government-funded experimental vaccines were hastily developed for a virus that primarily killed the old and fat (and those with other obvious comorbidities), and an aggressive, global campaign to coerce billions into injecting them ensued.
Then there were the lockdowns — with some countries (New Zealand, for example) building internment camps for those who tested positive for COVID-19, and others such as China welding entire apartment buildings shut to trap people inside.
It was an egregious and unnecessary response to a virus that, while highly virulent, was survivable by the vast majority of the general population. Oh, and the vaccines, which governments are still pushing, didn’t work as advertised to the point where health officials changed the definition of “vaccine” multiple times.
Tucker Carlson recently sat down with Dr. Pierre Kory, a critical care specialist and vocal critic of vaccines. The two had a wide-ranging discussion, which included vaccine safety and efficacy, excess mortality, demographic impacts of the virus, big pharma, and the professional price Kory has paid for speaking out.
Bill Banning Vaccine Mandates Advances in SC Senate
A bill prohibiting businesses from mandating a newly created vaccine advanced in the South Carolina Senate Thursday. However, several key figures, including the state’s health agency and the governor, have expressed serious concerns about the measure.
“There are a number of issues that we believe where this bill would cause harm to the people of South Carolina and would, in fact, cause unnecessary death amongst people of South Carolina during a public health crisis because it would prevent us from taking actions that could save lives,” said Simmer.
Under the proposal, public and private employers would be barred from mandating vaccines unless they have been licensed by the FDA within the past decade. Simmer emphasized that this could affect flu vaccines or other shots receiving yearly updates. Additionally, the bill relaxes restrictions on visitors to isolated individuals and reduces penalties for violating quarantine orders.
In response to Simmer’s concerns, supporters of the bill made several amendments. “We want the department to be able to have the ability to purchase, distribute, and administer novel vaccines, we just don’t want people to be mandated to have to take them and we don’t want people taking them without informed consent,” said Sen. Richard Cash (R-Anderson).
Big Tech Won’t Be Able to Track Kids’ Data in Maryland Under New Bill
Maryland’s legislature unanimously endorsed a bill Thursday aimed at bolstering children’s online security, putting the state on track to become the second in the nation that strictly limits what data technology companies may gather on minors.
Dubbed the Maryland Kids Code, the legislation seeks to answer horror stories about social media addiction and emotional appeals over children’s worsening well-being. The rules bar companies from spying on minors and using their data to push targeted ads or manipulate their behavior online for profit by serving up content designed to keep them scrolling endlessly.
Its passage will probably set the state up for a legal test over the First Amendment, similar to what is playing out in California and other states that have tried to restrict how companies collect and use children’s data.
China Lashes Out at U.S. ‘Free Speech’ Rights as TikTok Row Deepens
After a bill to potentially ban popular video-sharing platform TikTok passed in the U.S. House by an overwhelming margin, Chinese officials have penned a lengthy article excoriating Washington over its “double standards” on First Amendment rights.
“This report, by presenting numerous facts, aims to expose what ‘free speech‘ is according to the United States, what the U.S. actually does, and what its real purpose is,” reads the 3,600-word piece released Thursday by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
China’s most successful tech export, TikTok boasts nearly 2 billion users worldwide, including some 150 million active users in the U.S.
Scrap Coercive ‘Privacy Fee,’ MEPs Urge Meta’s Nick Clegg in Open Letter
Meta is facing a call from lawmakers in the European Union to scrap its controversial “consent or pay” tactic on Facebook and Instagram.
Currently, the company demands a per-account fee of €9.99/month on web or €12.99/month on mobile for users in the region wanting to avoid its tracking. No other choice is offered — meaning users wanting to continue accessing the two mainstream social networks for free are forced to accept a total loss of their privacy.
In an open letter, members of the European Parliament accuse Meta of manipulating users by offering a “false choice” between paying for an ad-free subscription or consenting to ongoing tracking and profiling through its surveillance-based ad targeting. The letter is addressed to Nick Clegg, the company’s president of global affairs — himself a former Brussels-based lawmaker — and has been signed by 36 MEPs, with representation spanning progressive, left-leaning and center/center-left political parties.
