For years, the Media Research Center has been pushing the idea that any attempt to correct lies and misinformation online — even when they involved issues such as public health and election integrity, where getting correct information to citizens is essential — is “censorship.” In the court system, one key case the MRC has put its faith in is Murthy v. Missouri, a case ginned up by right-wing then-Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt to advance conservative narratives aimed at stopping the federal government from addressing lies and misinformation (by, again, dishonestly framing reasonable efforts to do so as “censorship”). The case came up through the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is stacked with Trump-appointed judges and is notorious for inserting that conservative political bias into its rulings. The case eventually made it to the Supreme Court, and the MRC lobbied heavily for it while smearing its critics. Gabriela Pariseau groused in a Dec. 29 post:
Anti-free speech leftists continue to fight tooth and nail for the Biden administration to censor Americans.
Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia attorneys general wrote an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme to overturn a preliminary injunction ruling that prevents the Biden administration from colluding with social media platforms to censor online content. The amicus brief argued that the ruling allegedly “failed to properly distinguish between impermissible coercion and permissible efforts to persuade.” But, the Fifth Circuit did indeed make those distinctions. The Democrat attorneys general just don’t agree with them.
In the July 4 ruling for Missouri v. Biden (renamed Murthy v. Missouri), the Fifth Circuit court ruled that the Biden administration could no longer “engag[e] in any communication of any kind” with Big Tech companies for the purpose of “urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”
The ruling, however, did not prohibit the administration from notifying social media companies of “criminal activity or criminal conspiracies,” “national security threats,” “threats to public safety,” information “intending to mislead voters about voting requirements and procedures,” “cyber-attacks against election infrastructure, or foreign attempts to influence elections.” Essentially, so long as the administration was not working to curtail legal speech, it could communicate with a social media platform.
But the MRC has long complained that correcting lies and misinformation about those very things — particularly COVID-related misinformation – -constitutes “censorship.”
Luis Cornelio similarly bashed anyone not on board with its right-wing narrative in a Jan. 2 post:
A powerful group of leftist entities, including academics, doctors and a lawmaker, are rallying behind the Biden administration’s un-American censorship operations as it battles a pending Supreme Court case.
The influential leftists showed their support for the Biden administration in the form of various friend-of-the-court briefs for the Missouri v. Biden case (renamed Murthy v. Missouri). The briefs dubiously allege that blocking the federal government from influencing social media companies to censor free speech may undermine public health, national security and oddly enough, the First Amendment. The briefs, first reported by Just the News on Dec. 27, stemmed from the legal battle between the Biden administration and the Republican attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana.
[…]Citing alleged foreign attacks, Warner urged the Court to take adverse action against the lower courts’ rulings that found that the federal government violated the First Amendment when it coerced social media companies to censor Americans. “To preserve America’s ability to respond quickly and effectively to foreign malign influence campaigns that target our national security and elections, this Court should reverse the judgment of the Fifth Circuit in relevant part and direct that the preliminary injunction be vacated in its entirety,” Warner claimed. He ignored the injunction’s exceptions designed to allow the government to work with social media companies to protect Americans in cases of national security, election security and foreign interference.
Cornelio inserted an unwarranted “alleged” when a medical group pointed out medical misinformation:
Echoing the previous briefs’ sentiments, the American Academy of Pediatrics and American Medical Association resuscitated alleged COVID-19-related misinformation as reason enough to protect the federal government’s so-called ability to communicate with social media companies in the name of public health. “It is an indisputable scientific fact that vaccinations save lives,” the medical association claimed.
Cornelio didn’t explain why demonstrated misinformation and lies should be allowed to spread unchallenged, or why trying to correct those lies and misinformation is “un-American.” And one does not have to be labeled a “leftist” to want lies and misinformation to be corrected.
Catherine Salgado took the same approach on medical misinformation in a Jan. 25 post:
Five medical associations have filed a brief to the Supreme Court in support of the federal government’s efforts to censor free speech.
The Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general filed the Murthy v. Missouri case, which could lead to a free speech victory, against the federal government for pressuring social media to censor content on COVID-19 vaccines and other policies. The American Medical Association (AMA), however, along with four other similar groups, are siding with the Biden administration and against free speech in an amicus brief. According to an announcement, AMA and its allies assert that the government should be allowed to crush free speech, if it claims to be helping save lives.
[…]Besides the AMA, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Geriatrics Society and the American College of Physicians filed the amicus brief supporting government censorship efforts. The brief, per AMA, argues that the vaccine saved thousands of lives and reduced the burden on the medical system. Thus the medical associations argue the government has a good reason for trying to silence alleged misinformation.
Ultimately, however, the fact remains that the First Amendment protects speech from government censorship, regardless of whether some medical experts believe it is harming uptake of their suggested healthcare response.
Salgado then tried to rehash some bogus COVID-related conspiracy theories:
AMA cited FDA approval of vaccines even though the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines widely available to the public were never approved, only Emergency Use Authorized. “The declining vaccination uptake spurred by disinformation has also resulted in a resurgence of diseases—such as measles—that previously verged on eradication,” AMA’s brief claimed.
A number of the claims made online about COVID-19 that were censored for misinformation were later considered reasonable. For instance, NIAID official Dr. Anthony Fauci has admitted that social distancing was not scientific but arbitrary. The COVID-19 lab leak origin theory gained credibility even among some Biden officials, including the FBI. Meanwhile, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo is just one of numerous healthcare experts warning against the serious injury risks of the COVID-19 vaccine.
In fact, the Pfizer COVID vaccine received full FDA approval in August 2021, while the Moderna vaccine received full FDA approval in January 2022. Further, the lab-leak theory for the origin of COVID has yet to be conclusively proven, social distancing did help slow the spread of COVID, and Ladapo has been repeatedly busted for spreading COVID vaccine misinformation, so he simply can’t be trusted. All of this makes it look like Salgado wants COVID misinformation to spread unhindered.
Salgado returned to promote a fellow right-wing activist’s hyping the case in a March 11 post:
The president of the Brownstone Institute argued that a crucial upcoming Supreme Court case is so key that it effectively places Americans’ free speech rights on trial.
Brownstone president Jeffrey Tucker wrote in a March 1 column that he “never witnessed anything as crucial to the future of the idea of freedom itself compared with what will transpire on March 18, 2024.” That is the day on which the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Murthy v. Missouri’s arguments “concerning whether the government can force or nudge private companies to censor users on behalf of regime priorities.” The legal interpretation of the First Amendment and its freedoms will thus be at stake. MRC Free Speech America’s unique CensorTrack.org research was central to the Murthy v. Missouri suit.
The Supreme Court will be deciding if pre-trial intervention is needed after it previously stayed a lower court’s injunction restricting government censorship efforts, Tucker explained. “A ruling for the defense, which is essentially the government itself, will give license to every federal agency – including those that operate in secret like the FBI and CIA – to threaten every social media and media company in this country to delete any and all content that runs contrary to the approved narrative,” he warned.
[…]Supreme Court justices will be “shocked” by the “trillion-dollar industry” to crush speech, Tucker predicted. “Every federal agency is involved, deeply embedded in the operations of all media companies and digital technology,” affecting everyone’s life, he accused. He compared Big Tech companies to the Soviet propaganda papers of yesteryear. Except now there is a “global industry” of censorship, ensuring only approved opinions can be seen online. And with Big Tech trying to program censorship into algorithms and artificial intelligence, this is a particularly key issue.
The vital liberty that the constitutional framers greatly valued is at stake, Tucker concluded. “As I say, this is surely the most important issue we face. A decision by the Supreme Court to let this go on – seeing no real issue here – will lead straight to our doom and the death of freedom itself.”
Neither Brown nor Salgado explained why lies and misinformation must be allowed to spread unchecked, or why spreading this is a “vital liberty.” And Salgado and her fellow writer didn’t explain why it’s “censorship” to correct lies and misinformation.