This past Independence Day, a U.S. federal judge in Missouri v. Biden found that the Biden Administration violated Americans' First Amendment rights in urging social media companies to censor opinions. It also found that the Administration had funded universities and non-governmental organizations to create a veritable hit list of censorship, which it used to tell social media companies which people and ideas to deboost and censor.
Citing the need to censor speech as the only way to protect the American public, the Biden Administration told the court that it is too dangerous to apply the First Amendment to social media posts, given the depredations of sorting through misinformation from foreign states, political actors, or cranks.
The court was not impressed, and issued a preliminary injunction telling the Biden Administration it could no longer coerce Facebook, Twitter/X, and the like to censor users, because doing so violated the First Amendment. Under the order, the Administration also could not engage third parties to craft its censorship agenda. The court excoriated the Biden Administration for establishing an "Orwellian Ministry of Truth" in its zeal for censorship.
On appeal, a district court reinforced the first part of the injunction against the Administration—that it cannot coerce social media censorship—but failed to prohibit the second. As things stand, the Administration can still engage non-governmental actors to target people and ideas for censorship in the name of identifying "misinformation" online. The case currently sits at the Supreme Court, but more important than any judicial orders and opinions is the information unearthed during discovery.
Evidence revealed that employees at a dozen Federal government agencies and the Biden White House directly pressured social media companies to censor viewpoints it found contrary to the official narrative it pushed to the American people. Depositions of high-ranking career staff and political employees and unearthed emails between the government and social media companies like Facebook and Twitter/X revealed the government's tactics to suppress speech. The Surgeon General's office, the FBI, the CDC, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the White House itself were all closely involved.
Emails from the White House to Facebook show government officials threatening to use regulatory power to harm social media companies that did not comply with censorship demands.
Government agencies funded universities and NGOs to support enterprises with Orwellian names like "Virality Project" and "Center for Countering Digital Hate" to create a target list for the Administration's censorship efforts. With government backing, these entities—linked sometimes to prominent universities like Stanford and the University of Washington—work with corporate teams in social media companies' "trust and safety" divisions to censor offending speech.
The problem is that the government and these entities are bad at identifying misinformation, and they have a predilection for censoring people and ideas that are critical of government policy, whether those criticisms are true or false.
Take, for instance, the censorship of COVID science. According to court documents found during discovery, the Biden administration insisted on censoring and deboosting content that accurately pointed out the rapidly waning efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine against infections, which they used to justify executive orders imposing vaccine mandates.
The Virality Project issued a report identifying particular people they deemed responsible for a substantial portion of "vaccine mis-and disinformation" online. The Project received tips from the public and government "stakeholders" to construct its hitlist for censorship, which it conveyed to social media companies. In essence, the Virality Project served as a proxy for the government to exert its influence over Big Tech and suppress speech.
The Biden White House pressured Facebook to censor vaccine discussions, such as groups of vaccine-injured patients, that did not violate Facebook's community standards. In response to harsh communications from Biden COVID advisor Andy Slavitt in 2021, Facebook limited the reach of these groups and censored them.
Ironically, even the White House itself was caught by its censorship demands. At the Biden administration's behest, Facebook implemented algorithms to suppress posts their computers deemed "anti-vax." In April 2021, when the CDC issued a "pause" on the distribution of the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine because it had identified an elevated level of strokes in women, the Facebook algorithms tagged the White House account as an anti-vax account. The Administration angrily ordered Facebook to stop censoring its speech.
While we await the Supreme Court to decide whether it will endorse the injunction against the Administration's strong-arming of social media to endorse its censorship demands and restore the First Amendment to the US, Congress should act to dismantle the Administration's plainly unconstitutional Ministry of Truth.
Since the appellate courts seem reluctant to restrict the Administration from funding outside organizations to set its censorship agenda, Congress should use its power to cut the funding to the various agencies for these purposes. After a new House speaker is elected and budget negotiations begin anew, budget allocations for censorship would be an excellent target for spending cuts that every American elected official should be ashamed not to back.
Censorship violates the American civic religion. The Biden Administration and every elected official should remember that they all swore an oath to abide by the Constitution, which protects free speech. And if they cannot remember, voters should repeatedly remind them of that fact until they do.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Health Policy at Stanford University School of Medicine, a founding fellow of Hillsdale College's Academy of Science and Freedom, and a plaintiff in the Missouri v. Biden case.
Joe Grogan, JD, is a Senior Fellow at the University of Southern California's Schaeffer Center. Previously, he served as Assistant to President Donald J. Trump, as Director of the Domestic Policy Council, and as Associate Director for Health Programs at the Office of Management and Budget.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.
