Louisiana Federal judge's conclusions re: social media / free speech suppression

I thumbed through recent  threads here and failed to find one  regarding the recent (July 4, 2023) temporary injunction handed down by the Federal judge from Louisiana concerning US Government suppression of conservative-leaning free speech rights on social media platforms. I'm surprised references to this case were absent here, since it's a huge resource for political argument *l*. It restricts Biden administration officials and agency reps from meeting with or contacting social media (SM) companies for the purposes of "encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech". He also denied a stay request to administration lawyers after handing down the injunction. His conclusion included "this targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech" ; and " the US Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ' Ministry of Truth' ".The judge is a conservative duly appointed by Trump (no surprises). The suit was filed by the AG's from Missouri and Louisiana. Temp win for conservatives regarding free speech and SM censorship.

Points of contention included censorship of conservative free speech concerning COVID 19 vaccines, masking, and lockdowns; lab-leak origin theory of C-19; validity of the 2020 election; opposition to Biden's policies; the infamous laptop; and opposition to policies of govt officials in power. The judge concluded that all the above involved substantiated evidence of suppressed free speech experienced by conservative-leaning contributors to SM platforms since 2019. 

This info is now ancient ( nearly three weeks since the decision, which is a lifetime in today's never-ending crisis oriented news cycle). This one will likely end up at the Supreme Court. The battle rages onward and upward...until then. Have fun.

It's been determined in multiple court cases, including several held before the Supreme Court, that free speech protections do not extend to speech that causes harm. And conspiracy theory-based diatribes against vaccines, masking, and lockdowns definitely caused harm; the "evil heathen Chinee" Covid nonsense definitely caused harm (for one thing, Trump aimed his travel restrictions in exactly the wrong direction); garbage that supported and fomented the insurrection caused harm; et cetera.

I somehow can't find any instances of Republicans agitating for the right of people to post their opinions in support of gay/trans rights, universal health care, climate change mitigation, etc. So this bulldogshit was NEVER about free speech. It was about ideology and the "right" to spread disinformation.

We all have rights. But only in exceptional circumstances do those rights give us license to hurt or endanger people. I wonder, for instance, how many people got sick and died after reading and believing antisocial media babble regarding ivermectin and substituting it for actual medical care? Do you think that any clown had the right to push that shit? I don't.

I suspect the reason that you haven't heard much about this is that the decision is truly awful and won't survive an appeal. This ruling was so hyperpartisan, it even makes Louisiana Repubblekins blanch.

Again, the battle rages on. I'll guess that this one ends up in the SC; absolutely certain to be appealed. The outcome of said appeal? Who knows, including you nor I.  We'll see. Ivermectin contention was a part of this case, or rather the right to free speech about it. I'll disagree with you that this case wasn't about free speech. R's have lost a plethora of cases when the judges weren't leaning their way, so to speak. It's not supposed to be that way, of course, but it's part of the fantasy / reality we all live in these days. 

I guess you have to ask the question.....

Were there deaths and or harm done to  the public by distributing the false statement that COVID vaccines are not effective and some kind of liberal brainwashing power grab?  And its better to use horse-dewormer instead?

I would say yes.....

People died because of that "conservative thought".  And whats worse is the people who spread that message like DOnald Trump and Tucker Carlson didnt subscribe to their own "conservative thought".   When Trump got sick he suddenly turned to the same medical experts he ridiculed and undermined all  over his social media account.    How many of his followers followed his advice instead of his personal treatment plan and died?

He also did things like give the address of a Georgia poll worker as part of his conservative thought and led his army of shitkickers to her front door where she was harrassed in the name of a refuted conspiracy theory.

So is it better to censor that thought....or should you let the bad things happen from that thought and prosecute those.     FOX News was sued for 3/4 Billion dollars for saying their conservative thoughts.  Maybe that should have been the route for all the other instances too.

Regardless if its censored or prosecuted ....there should be consequences to irresponsible blowhards who spew conservative thought  that kills or physically harms people.

I doubt it'll make it that far. As soon as it leaves Crazyana, it'll lose its ideological cachet. No federal court will do anything other than puke on it. You can say (and it will be said by somebody) that that is just another example of the federal gummint's overreach and trying to tell the states what to do and exerting its authority belch grunt snort. It's the same crap you hear when abortion rights are "discussed"--the states supposedly have the right to pony up their own interpretations of the Constitution and its amendments, even when human rights are the issue.

Interesting that you say that this isn't about free speech. Really? Why not? Seems to me that it's about the limitations thereof. You wanna research the issue re Supreme Court decisions, read the opinions in Schenck v United States (1919) and Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969). This does, of course, devolve to an examination of the rightful powers of the executive branch. That's why it's going to be attractive to the present Supreme un-Court, as they might feel it's a good way to stick it to Democrats/Biden (which they evidently feel is their sole goal/purpose/mission). But as I said, the case will never make it past any lower federal court.

This is another example of "doing the right thing" versus "doing what will buy the most votes." IMHO, pandemic restrictions, even in supposed violations of ARE PRESHUS FREEDUMBS, were both humane and necessary. We had an "extra" half million deaths because our freedumb-loving people fought tooth and nail against those restrictions. I for one would have heartily supported a complete shutdown of social media for the duration of the pandemic. But of course, Trump never even slapped them on the wrist. So...Biden did the right, and unpopular thing when he took office.

And...absolutely, positively, neither you nor I have the right to tell anybody that ivermectin will miraculously cure your disease, any more than we have the right to tell anyone that the way to cure arthritis is to saw your hands off.

      This post is so full of shit.

Once again, Millerscum manages to be an asshole and an idiot in a very few stupid words.

Kevin and PJ...Read the judge's memorandum / synopsis/ ruling of the case...peruse the voluminous evidence presented by the AG's ( if you can tolerate it; splitting it up over 4 days might help sifting through the 155 page report). After having done that, if you continue to deny the outcome regarding free speech restrictions imposed on conservative SM contributors..so be it. It'd be blatantly hypocritical for me to offensively berate / denounce your liberal stances on this issue no matter my desire to do so after having posted said conservative - leaning outcome..eg I'd be potentially limiting both your free speech rights. One of the key attributes of the free speech clause is that it ultimately invites dispute and disagreement; there's limited or no progress on the issues in practice without it. On retrospective thought, don't waste your time with said evidence..it won't make any difference in your analyses because of the source.  I disagree with you, though. Back to square one. *l*

https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/press-releases/missouri-v-biden-ruling.pdf?sfvrsn=dd807c2_2

Charles, I fully concede Its a difficult subject.  Limiting free speech should never be done in the spirit of disagreeing with the speech itself.   I dont have a problem with the Mike Lindell's of the world spewing divisive conspiracy theories all over social media so long as nobody is hurt as a result.    But  I think its fair to say people were hurt as a direct result of some speech that was made during the Trump era.    

Again - do you censor it?  Or do you let the speech stand and prosecute the damage it causes as a result?  I struggle with that and respectfully leave it to COnstituional Law experts.

But this is truly an interesting topic the same week Ron DeSantis says he wants to prosecute InBev (parent company of Bud Light) because their controversial  commercial marketing their product to LGBT people was illegal (according to him).   And by "illegal" I mean "DeSantis doesnt agree with the message".     I can confidently say nobody was hurt by that ad beyond it violating their political beliefs.      Anyone who condones that effort to punish speech while objecting to "liberals censoring anti-vaccine speech" doesnt have much integrity do they?

Charles, you persist in dressing this up as a noble defense of free speech case--when it's nothing of the kind. It's actually a case testing the limits of personal freedom. Those limits have already been well established--you can't hurt others in the process of exercising your rights. And that clearly was done.

So because your focus is off, so is your conclusion. YES, these folks' freedom of speech was restricted. That's not up for debate. That makes the real question: were those restrictions justified, given the situation?

You see, Charles...it's somewhat of a red herring. The sanctions were imposed against conservative commentators. That can be "interpreted"--as you have, and so did the ruling court--as an anti-conservative crusade.

The reality is that the targets of those sanctions were conservatives because ONLY conservatives made covid conspiracies, election denial, etc. a fundamental part of their message. This wasn't an attempt to curtail their free speech rights. It was an attempt to stop them from abusing those rights. That abuse was KILLING PEOPLE.

As PJ points out, we are somewhat in uncharted territory here. It's a new thing, that one of the two major political parties has made utter nonsense a fundamental, central part of its message. I doubt that the Founding Fathers ever envisioned free speech as including dangerous nonsense that kills people. Or such nonsense becoming "mainstream," like, some kind of national cult. But that's what happened.

It's as if some left-handed people formed a club, decided to murder people for fun, twelve of them were arrested for those crimes, and their defense is that The Left-handed People Club is being persecuted.

I guess I should ask you then: do YOU think this was all about a heinous anti-conservative crusade by the EEEEEEEVIL Biden administration? Do you think those conservative commentators had the right to say whatever they wanted, regardless of its impact? Because it sure sounds like that's where you're coming from here.