Biden has no defense in appeal of censorship ruling

On the 4th of July (appropriately), District Court Judge Terry Doughty issued his now famous order barring the Biden administration and other federal governmental entities from communicating with various social media platforms and pushing them to censor the opinions of some users. The ruling was applauded by those who appreciate free speech and oppose granting the government the power to define what constitutes “misinformation” and “disinformation.” But the White House quickly vowed to appeal the ruling and attempt to get the order overturned. On Monday, that appeal was filed. But as Betsy McCaughey points out in the New York Post, the appeal is an empty bag. Biden’s team failed to offer even one convincing argument as to why the government should be able to censor citizens by proxy using the power of the major social media platforms.

On Monday, President Joe Biden played his cards. He’s all bluff, no aces.

Biden is the defendant in a lawsuit that accuses him and his team of, in federal District Court Judge Terry Doughty’s words, “the most massive attack against free speech in the United States.”

Yet the appeal Biden filed Monday is devoid of even one convincing argument in his own defense.

Count on the appeal to go nowhere. Biden’s been caught red-handed violating the Constitution.

Let’s hope that McCaughey is correct and the appeal is rejected. But while all of her arguments are compelling, this case may yet continue to rattle around in the court system. The sad reality in the current environment is that any court case dealing with a political hot-button issue like this one can turn into a ping-pong match. It all depends on the judge that you draw and which appellate court or courts wind up hearing it.

This case is particularly crucial, however, particularly when you look at the established history of what sort of opinions and posts were being censored at the behest of the federal government. As McCaughey reminds us, the muted or blocked posts frequently dealt with how the vaccines were developed and rolled out, along with other pandemic response measures. People demonstrating an insufficient level of alarm over climate issues have been silenced. In some cases, you weren’t even supposed to talk about inflation under the Biden administration.

And then there was the 800-pound gorilla in the room. You weren’t supposed to bring up anyone in Joe Biden’s family, most particularly his frequently errant son Hunter. As Betsy points out, all politicians are subject to criticism. That’s how the system is supposed to work. But the way this administration has been operating under the covers resembles a page “straight out of Kim Jong Un’s playbook.”

The mountain of damning evidence against Biden includes instances when the administration said they would “consider altering Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act” if the social media platforms didn’t comply. That’s a direct threat since that article is the only thing protecting the companies from endless lawsuits over material appearing on their websites. But that doesn’t mean that Section 230 doesn’t need to be amended. Currently, Facebook, YouTube, and the rest of the platforms are trying to eat their cake and have it too when it comes to Section 230. They insist they are not responsible for what users put on their platform so they can’t be penalized, but they turn around and remove content as they see fit. (Or as the government demands.) That’s the definition of “curating” content, so doesn’t it make them responsible for anything that they don’t remove? One might think so.

It will take time for this case to play out fully. In the meantime, better methods need to be identified to determine if this administration has really cut off communications with social media platforms and stopped censoring citizens by proxy. Given the track record of this President, I wouldn’t put it past them to simply ignore the court’s order and stick to business as usual. The business is censorship, and business is booming.