No more “Ministry of Truth”?

After Elon Musk took over Twitter, he began releasing documentation that revealed extensive communications between the federal government and the social media giant. The communications predated the Biden administration, but showed that the current administration has exhibited an aggressiveness to censor those who said things with which the Biden administration disagreed. A federal judge, at the urging of several state attorneys general, has put a stop to it—at least for now.

U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana issued an injunction at the request of Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and Eric Schmitt, then Missouri’s attorney general but now a U.S. senator. The attorneys argued that evidence showed the federal government had been using social media companies to do indirectly what the federal government could not do directly—censor people’s free speech. The attorneys argued that the federal government had regular contact with the social media companies, flagging posts and users whose statements online the government found objectionable.

Judge Doughty, in his injunction wrote that the “evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario. 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.’”

Attorney General Landry, after the July 4 ruling, released a statement saying, “The evidence in our case is shocking and offensive with senior federal officials deciding that they could dictate what Americans can and cannot say on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other platforms about COVID-19, elections, criticism of the government, and more.”

There are a few important takeaways from the decision so far, which will be appealed. First, it really does appear that the federal government, through both the White House and several agencies, contacted social media companies to request information be blocked or users be monitored. The government believed, particularly with the rollout of the COVID vaccine, that some people used social media platforms to sow unreasonable doubts and fears about the vaccine. Social media companies, in turn, censored those people.

Second, the American left and much of the press are critical of the ruling. Over the past few years, as voices on the right have risen in prominence on social media, the left and the press have embraced pressuring the private sector into censoring. For a time, most everyone understood the best way to combat disinformation and misinformation was with the truth. But now, at competitive parity online on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, the left has opted to censor its opponents instead of combating lies with truth. The press, complicit with the left, has, instead of supporting free speech, encouraged the suppression of dissenting voices.

Third, undoubtedly some of the people being censored were indeed bad actors. There have, in fact, been a series of loud voices spreading disinformation and fear about the COVID vaccine. Several prominent accounts circulated, for example, a list of athletes who had dropped dead after the COVID vaccine. A very basic examination of the list showed many of the deaths were unrelated to COVID including one marathoner who literally dropped dead—he fell off a cliff during a run. Notwithstanding that, it was the federal government and prominent voices on the left who assured Americans the COVID vaccine would prevent people from getting COVID. That too, was not true, but those who spoke the truth were harassed and censored by social media companies.

Fourth, the press has rushed into a fear scenario over the ruling with several media outlets and legal analysts suggesting the federal government will be prohibited by the injunction from working with tech companies to stop crimes, including child pornography. That is absolutely not true. The judge’s injunction makes clear the injunction only applies to protected free speech rights. Child pornography is not protected free speech. That the press would jump to that conclusion is a reminder that some of the peddlers of misinformation and disinformation are working for the “mainstream media.”

The judge’s injunction is a big win for free speech. It also serves as a stark reminder that the federal government and progressive agitators have taken an expansive view of private sector activism. They have chosen to engage the private sector to advance their agenda when the government has no constitutional mandate. With Republican control of most states and the House of Representatives, the left increasingly sees the private sector as a way to silence their opponents.

With increasing hostility to people of faith by the government, and with that hostility often advanced now by the private sector, one federal judge in Louisiana has shown a path forward. The ruling sends a clear and encouraging signal that progressive government bureaucrats must not be able to use the private sector to advance their censorious agenda.