On July 4, 2023, conservative Americans were celebrating the freedom of a nation, as well as freedom from censorship under President Joe Biden’s regime.
In a decision blasting the Department of Justice’s heavy-handed and unchecked suppression of the First Amendment, Federal Judge Terry Doughty called the Biden administration’s actions potentially “the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”
During the hearing, Doughty outlined the DOJ’s coercion and bullying tactics in a 155-page document. He ended by issuing an injunction to block the administration from “encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”
The left immediately erupted in outrage and indignation. Without the ability to control what the masses see, read, and think, their agenda and the ability to interfere with elections are in jeopardy. The Biden administration immediately begged the appeals court to postpone the injunction, especially at a time when the Biden family corruption was just beginning to see the light of day.
The DOJ claimed that the injunction presented a clear threat to Americans because it blocked the administration’s ability to work with social media companies on “initiatives to prevent grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes.”
In its brief, the DOJ denied that it encouraged social media platforms to bury or delete any information. Conversely, they attempted to explain that there is a distinction between persuasion and coercion. More specifically, the DOJ’s lack of physical force implied persuasion, not coercion. The difference, it seems, was that rather than sending in SWAT teams to force compliance, the Biden administration threatened to prosecute social media companies that did not do as requested.
The DOJ claimed that they merely requested content moderation, specifically for COVID.
But investigations had revealed tens of thousands of “content moderation requests,” resulting in shadow-bans, content removal, flagging, and outright account bans of millions of posts and users, sometimes pre-emptively before conservatives even had a chance to post an opinion.
Biden was quick to accuse social media companies of murder because, in the administration’s opinion, the censorship did not go far enough.
The DOJ hoped to reclaim the ability to stifle conservative thought during their August 10 hearing through the court of appeals, It appears it is poised to lose its appeal for a temporary pause on the injunction and its ability to censor users. An appellate court seems to be set to allow the injunction to move forward and block the DOJ’s right to coerce and threaten social media platforms and users.
The DOJ claims innocence because it never truly defined the “or else” part of its threats. The court compared the DOJ’s censorship to mafia tactics, using thinly veiled threats. As with the mafia, the “or else” never needed to be defined. It was just implied and understood.
But Republicans revealed that the “or else” was clearly defined and included rolling back legal benefits and immunity for social media companies that did not comply with the DOJ’s demands.
So far, the court is still deciding the fate of the injunction. Experts feel that two out of three judges on the panel will uphold at least part of, if not all, of the July 4 injunction.
If the court rules in favor of the First Amendment, the DOJ plans to fight for its right to censor free speech up the legal ladder. One way or the other, It’s expected to end up in the hands of the Supreme Court of the United States, where its final fate will be determined.
This case marks yet another example of a potential SCOTUS decision that could uphold the Constitution and threaten the liberal agenda. It may account for some Democrats’ desperation to pack the court. If the ability to manipulate the media is limited, so is the ability to manipulate the public.
The timing of the censorship battle is perilous for the DOJ, which is in danger of losing the ability to manipulate information. It’s especially dangerous now, as Biden’s summer of scandal heats up faster than the Arctic Ocean in a progressive’s fantasy.
