Alito questions Supreme Court censorship case

 Daily Caller:

Justice Samuel Alito excoriated the Supreme Court majority for “shirk[ing]” its duty to restrain the government’s coercive censorship efforts in “one of the most important free speech cases” to reach the high court in years.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided 6-3 with the Biden administration in Murthy v. Missouri, finding that two states and five individual plaintiffs lacked standing to seek an injunction against the government’s wide-ranging efforts to suppress speech online. The case concerned the federal government requesting social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter remove certain content related to COVID-19 and other hot-button issues; many of the posts that were censored were factual, and critics argued the Biden administration attempted to censor conservative viewpoints.

In his dissent, Alito, who was joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, argued that the majority’s decision “permits the successful campaign of coercion in this case to stand as an attractive model for future officials who want to control what the people say, hear, and think.”

“Their communications with Facebook were virtual demands,” he wrote, pointing to the White House’s many requests to remove “misinformation” related to COVID-19. “And Facebook’s quavering responses to those demands show that it felt a strong need to yield.”
...

Merely noting that Facebook declined to take some of the government’s suggestions is “bad logic” contradicted by the record, Alito wrote, pointing to internal Facebook emails that “paint a clear picture of subservience.”

“Facebook’s responses resembled that of a subservient entity determined to stay in the good graces of a powerful taskmaster,” Alito wrote. “When criticized, Facebook representatives whimpered that they ‘thought we were doing a better job’ but promised to do more going forward…And when denounced as ‘killing people,’ Facebook responded by expressing a desire to ‘work together collaboratively’ with its accuser.”
...

I think Alito is right.  I would also note that some of the content that was being censored was actually truthful. 

See also:

Elon Musk Defies CNN’s Demands to Censor Debate Streams on X: ‘DMCA Does Not Apply’

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