[winkwinkwink]

Do continue! And please be more specific which cases you're citing. The case I think you're referring to (Murthy v. Missouri) was decided this last June by the US Supreme Court. Even that resulted in a wash where plaintiffs didn't show standing.

Also, you're citing instances that were walked back or otherwise not implemented. That's very different to what happened with Kimmel. Or is that moving goal posts again?

[rendall]

Standing was denied, not the underlying finding. The Court never ruled that coordination between the White House and social-media platforms was constitutionally fine. The district court had found likely coercion, which remains uncontested on the merits.

And whether an initiative was walked back (like the Disinformation Board) doesn’t erase the intent to institutionalize speech regulation through DHS. Retraction after exposure doesn’t mean it wasn’t attempted.

But sure, as you requested:

The FBI’s role in the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story is another example. In the months leading up to the 2020 election, the FBI held regular briefings with major tech platforms warning of possible “hack-and-leak” operations by foreign actors, specifically referencing topics that would later match the Hunter Biden reports. When The New York Post published its story, Twitter and Facebook immediately throttled or blocked it. Later, both companies acknowledged that the FBI’s warnings influenced those decisions. The Bureau didn’t issue a formal takedown order, but the effect was identical: a law-enforcement agency used its authority to shape the information environment around an election.

The Obama administration’s record under the Espionage Act also fits the pattern. Obama’s Department of Justice prosecuted more whistleblowers and leakers under that law than all previous administrations combined, often targeting disclosures that embarrassed the government but posed no clear security risk. Journalists who published the material, such as James Risen and others, were subpoenaed and threatened with jail time for refusing to reveal sources. That’s a textbook use of state power to chill investigative reporting.

There’s also the IRS targeting scandal, in which conservative nonprofit groups applying for tax-exempt status were singled out for extra scrutiny based on their political keywords (“Tea Party,” “Patriots,” etc.). The eventual Inspector General report confirmed viewpoint discrimination within a federal agency that directly affected the ability of those groups to operate and speak.

These episodes differ in scale and directness, but they share a common feature: government institutions, under Democratic leadership, exerting pressure,formal or informal, on the flow of information and the people disseminating it. Whether by pre-emptive warnings, selective enforcement, or bureaucratic choke points, each represents a form of speech control that doesn’t need a censorship law to be effective.

None of this is to suggest the problem is uniquely Democratic. Republicans have done the same and sometimes more overtly: pressuring the NFL over protests, threatening tech companies with regulation for perceived bias, using state legislatures to police campus or library speech, or floating defamation crackdowns against critics. Both parties reach for state power when it suits their narrative.

The conclusion isn’t that Democrats are worse, but that once any faction normalizes using the machinery of government to manage expression, the precedent will be used by everyone. The real lesson is that censorship, whether bureaucratic or partisan, always expands beyond its architects’ original intent.

[estearum]

Just to clarify for anyone inundated by the wall of... ahem... suspiciously verbose? text here:

The reason standing was denied in Murthy v Missouri is that the plaintiffs could not show any evidence whatsoever that their speech was curtailed due to any pressure whatsoever from the government.

In fact, their allegedly cancelled speech had been cancelled prior to any interaction at all between the administration and the platforms. It was cancelled because it violated the terms of service which the platforms developed and enforced well before the Biden administration even took office.

Twitter's own lawyers testified under oath that the government's requests played no role in their content moderation decisions and that requests were frequently denied with no repercussions.

[rendall]

Just to clarify for the zero other people who have gotten down to here: that’s only a partial description of Murthy v. Missouri. Standing was denied because the plaintiffs couldn’t demonstrate direct, individualized harm, not because the Court found the government’s conduct blameless. The Supreme Court explicitly avoided ruling on whether the administration’s communications with platforms were coercive. This was not a vindication, as GP implies.

As for the timeline, while some moderation policies pre-dated Biden, the record (from the district court, congressional reports, and the platforms’ own disclosures) shows substantial post-inauguration contact between federal officials and social-media companies, including specific requests to remove or de-amplify posts. Twitter’s legal testimony that it "often declined" requests does not negate that the government was actively attempting to influence what could be said online. Coercion doesn’t require success.

Not sure what's the angle, here. When Democrats do it, it's OK? It's OK if it doesn't work? Strange. When anyone does it, it's not OK. When people stop seeing the parties of the Duopoly as tribal identities they need to support no matter what, maybe we can get some effective, less corruptible US government.

[estearum]

No I think "the angle" is extremely clear: government requests are fine (important even!) and coercion is bad.

The government itself has First Amendment rights to request action from private entities. Those private entities have First Amendment rights to accept or decline those requests without fear of reprisal.

Both MAGA and Biden (and every other admin) have requested action from private parties. But in Biden's case, there's no evidence of coercion, the "coerced parties" didn't say they were coerced, and there was no tool the people requesting action could've even used to damage the platforms.

In MAGA's case, coercion was posted on Truth Social, stated by regulatory agency heads on national news, and could functionally be actually executed by those same regulatory heads using broadcast licenses or merger reviews. These decisions actually

Why do I care that our government retain the right to request action from private parties?

If the government is looking for a murder suspect, they should (and do) have a right to request that a local news station put out a PSA. They should (and do) have a right to request that the local news does not broadcast information that may help the murder suspect.

In both cases, the local news stations itself should (and does) have a First Amendment right to either accept or decline these requests.

If we take your implication that the government has no right to request action, then they cannot publish PSAs via private channels. They cannot assist platforms in identifying CSAM. They cannot communicate evacuation orders. They cannot communicate product recalls.

If we take your implication that private parties have no right to accept such requests when they want to, then control of speech is as simple as the government requesting to remove content that they want to ensure is not removed, or requesting to publish content they do not want published.

Both of these are utterly ridiculous outcomes which is why this is not the legal framework in reality!

This has nothing to do with not "seeing" the duopoly. No one is happy with our two party system. But as shown, it's simply not true that your imaginary legal theory 1) exists or 2) would be "effective" or "less corruptible", nor is it true that "both sides" are equally guilty of abusing the actual legal structure we have today.

[rendall]

That is a reasonable summary of the ideal framework: government can request, private parties can accept or refuse. The problem is the practical imbalance of power when the requester controls licensing, regulation, or future oversight. The "request" becomes coercive when made by an entity with the ability to punish or reward. Courts have repeatedly recognized this distinction in First Amendment jurisprudence (see Bantam Books v. Sullivan, 1963 [1]).

No one here argued that the government cannot issue PSAs, coordinate emergency messaging, or report CSAM. The issue is when the same channels are used to influence lawful political speech or to "pre-bunk" narratives before elections. That is not analogous to public-safety communication.

As for evidence of coercion: while the Supreme Court dismissed Murthy on standing, the district court found substantial evidence of "coercive pressure." The finding was not overturned by the Supreme Court's decision. Even if platforms denied feeling coerced, the record shows White House officials warning of regulatory consequences and explicitly flagging posts for removal. The absence of a formal order only makes it harder to prove, but it is not therefore benign.

Your murder-suspect analogy works because it's bounded by law enforcement necessity. The social-media cases involve subjective political and scientific claims where the government had a direct reputational stake. That's where the line shifts from coordination to censorship.

So yes, governments can ask. But when the asking is done by regulators, with implied power over those they're asking, the line between request and command gets very thin. That's the danger people are pointing to and it's not partisan.

[1] https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/372/58/

[estearum]

That is just an inaccurate analysis of Bantam. It is not solely whether the requestor has the ability to punish or reward, though this is a component (one which is lacking in the Biden administration scenarios, for what it's worth).

> No one here argued that the government cannot issue PSAs, coordinate emergency messaging, or report CSAM. The issue is when the same channels are used to influence lawful political speech or to "pre-bunk" narratives before elections. That is not analogous to public-safety communication.

The Biden scenarios you mentioned are, quite obviously, public safety related. There are not bright lines between "lawful political speech" or "pre-election narratives" or "law enforcement necessity" or "public-safety communication."

More importantly, your suggestion that enforcement should be content-specific is directly contrary to how First Amendment protections work. Content-neutrality is a core tenet!

The government is allowed to request and isn't allowed to coerce you for speech containing any content whatsoever. Maybe that's where your line shifts from coordination to censorship, but that is not where any legal line is.

> So yes, governments can ask. But when the asking is done by regulators, with implied power over those they're asking, the line between request and command gets very thin. That's the danger people are pointing to and it's not partisan.

This is far too abstract to be useful. There were no "regulators" involved in the Biden <> platform COVID conversation.