In the Missouri v. Biden court case, litigated by the plaintiffs collectively comprised of the attorney generals of Louisiana and Missouri, among some other parties, against the Joe Biden administration, the court, led by Trump-appointed federal judge Terry Doughty, ruled that the Biden Administration’s collusion with Big Tech companies, such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, which all have at least an 85% market share, was illegal and unconstitutional, and rightfully so.
Tracy Baenz, one of the attorneys in the case, did an interview with Tom Woods explaining some of the details. As Baenz explained, the government on multiple occasions blatantly told social media companies to censor what the government deemed “misinformation”, especially on topics related to the legitimacy of the COVID-19 protocols, and the dangers of the COVID-19 “vaccine” injection.
Let’s first explain why this collusion between government and these big tech companies to censor free speech violates liberty and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. While it is true that the First Amendment only restricts the government from restricting free speech, it does not explicitly prohibit non-governmental entities, such as private entities, from doing so. For example, if a movie theater doesn’t allow speech while a performance is occurring, and if a spectator violates the movie theater’s policy, the movie theater has every right to eject the spectator from the private property of the theater.
However, in the case of big tech and the federal government, it was the federal government working together with these big tech companies to restrict and censor free speech. As such, while it wasn’t the government directly censoring free speech, it was by proxy, which is equivalent to direct censorship, which has at times actually happened in U.S. history, such as the banning of books like Tragedy and Hope by Carroll Quigley and The Federal Mafia by Irwin Schiff. As such, big tech companies censoring free speech at the behest of the federal government, such as in the Missouri v. Biden case, is a violation of both free speech liberties and The First Amendment.
It’s similar to someone paying a mercenary to murder somebody; while the mercenary’s funder didn’t directly commit the murder, the funder did knowingly enable and conspire to commit the murder, which is therefore also a crime, as is of course the direct murder by the mercenary.
Additionally, because of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, these big tech companies are not legally allowed to censor material on their platforms in order to maintain their protection from liability for any content published on their platform. Therefore, by censoring material on their platforms, these companies lose their status as platforms, and thereby, also lose their Section 230 protection from liability.
Furthermore, lots of these big tech companies receive taxpayer money for lucrative contracts and projects, which thereby diminishes their status as private companies. No private company should be receiving taxpayer money as it violates the fundamental rights of the people by forcing them to pay for these contracts between government and big tech against the people’s will. Companies that do receive taxpayer money almost always need to follow government protocols and control, further making them proxies of government, rather than independent companies. In fact, Google, which has been the parent company of YouTube for almost two decades, started out with government funds to eventually grow into the household name giant that it is today. You can read more details about this here.
So now that the correct ruling has been made in Missouri v. Biden, what happens next? Will the government comply or try to circumvent the court’s ruling? If this case gets appealed to higher courts will they overrule judge Doughty?
First off, the Biden administration has filed a motion to stay, meaning temporarily suspend, judge Doughty’s ruling, and will appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The first forecast of this post is that given the conservative nature of the Firth Circuit Court of Appeals, the appeal to that court will not overturn judge Doughty’s ruling.
So with that, what’s likely to happen next? Most likely, the Biden administration won’t relent, and will try to appeal to higher courts, going all the way up to the Supreme Court. Even if the appeal by the Biden administration ends up going all the way to the Supreme Court, again, the forecast is that the ruling will not be in favor of Biden. This is primarily because the case by the defense is simply too weak, and the Biden administration has exercised too much hubris, with people like former press secretary Jen Psaki and surgeon general Vivek Murthy explicitly telling big tech companies to censor material that they deemed to be misinformation.
That gets into the prognostication regarding whether the government will respect the court ruling and cease and desist from its censorship. Already, Children’s Health Defense is warning about continuing censorship against those who dispute the Climate Change narrative, mainly that carbon dioxide production is destroying the environment in existentially harmful ways. Also, outgoing CDC director Rachelle Wolensky is pushing to make sure no truth regarding vaccine dangers leaks out to the public. Perhaps most importantly, will the courts summon the marshals to go after the Biden administration if it continues to collude with big tech to censor material on big tech platforms?
From recent history, even after California governor Gavin Newsom and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitemer defied the court orders in 2020 in their respective states whereby the court rules that Newsom’s and Whitmer’s use of emergency powers to impose COVID-19 related mandates(lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, mandatory masking, etc.) was unconstitutional and illegal, the courts failed to summon the marshals to arrest or even thwart Newsom and Whitmer. To use a more historical example, even after then Supreme Court Justice John Marshall ruled that then President Andrew Jackson’s actions to forcibly exile Cherokee Native Americans, in what later came to be known as The Trail of Tears, was unconstitutional, Jackson defied Marshall’s ruling. Marshall also failed to summon the marshals against Jackson. Jackson went on to issue his infamous quote; “John Marshall has made his decision, let him now enforce it”. Marshall never did.
As such, the final forecast of this post is that history will repeat, or at least rhyme. The Biden administration and federal government will continue censoring, finding loopholes and other similar methods to do so, and the courts will fail to send the marshals after them for acting in defiance and contempt of the Missouri v. Biden ruling. Especially with the effective tactics of the Deep State, such as blackmail and other similar threats, the courts will not have an easy time making sure the Biden administration and federal government respect their rulings, especially on matters like censorship, even by proxy.