The Supreme Court’s decision to reject Murthy v. Missouri on standing grounds established that the courts cannot impose rules prohibiting the senior branch’s destruction of speech through private companies. This implies that the solution lies with Congress if you think that the government has no business dictating what data should be censored in the modern people square — social media websites ).
The idea of the government censoring National voices online stifles dictatorship and violates self-government principles. Social media platforms are no state-owned subsidiaries. They have their own set of rules for community service and are private institutions. Any attempt by the government to censor certain data sets a risky law that threatens the cloth of our world.  ,  ,
Murthy is a perfect illustration of this worrying pattern. The effort of repression in the case of Surgeon General Murthy to force certain comments about Covid-19 treatments to be removed from social media websites was little short of. And we now know for a fact that the government disapproved of a large amount of the Covid-related information, such as the lab-leak hypothesis, the ineffectiveness of masks, and the lack of any medical justification for the six-foot rule, was either real or at most moderately debatable.  ,
Unfortunately, this is not the only instance of government cooperation with businesses to judge particular voices or information. The FBI witness’s new direct refutation of the bogus claim at the Biden father’s new Delaware test that the laptop was Russian propaganda, brings to mind the battle to judge discussion of the Hunter Biden laptop. The government may not be able to suppress opposition voices or impede the flow of information, especially in the environment of politics and elections.  ,
The best way to stop this jawboning had, of course, be to pass a law in Congress that would do so. However, Congress should at least impose strict safeguards to prevent abuse of power if it wo n’t stop government agencies from meddling in the affairs of social media companies and their users. We think the most effective guard is the simplest:  , Allow the sun flourish.  ,
The government must communicate with private companies in writing whenever they wish to engage with them regarding content, and it must do so within a week of the interaction.  ,  ,  ,
However, any government official who circumvents those demands, whether by avoiding creating a written report of such interactions or by failing to release them on a timely basis, may face severe consequences, up to and including the loss of job. The law should protect those who report any violations, including those working for the government or any social media company.  ,  ,
There will undoubtedly be objections that some exceptions will be required to this rule in order to safeguard national security or ongoing law enforcement operations or the like. In those circumstances, we think that any law that Congress passes should contain an exception to the deadline for publishing jawboning communications that ( a ) fall under the purview of Congress and ( b ) have received personally certified by the agency’s head as being exempt from the prompt publication rule. Requiring personal certification from the agency’s head would ensure both that these exceptions would be rarely used and that the agency head in question would not be able to later deny ignorance of either the underlying communication or the decision to withhold it from publication.  ,  ,
Additionally, any jaw-banging communications that have been withheld from the general public must be promptly shared with a bipartisan Congressional oversight committee, and the agency head must recertify them at regular intervals ( we suggest quarterly ).  ,
Freedom of speech is not a negotiable commodity, it’s a fundamental right that must be fiercely protected. We ca n’t let the government dictate what we can and cannot say, especially when it comes to online conversation. It’s time to draw a line in the sand and stand up for our right to freely express our opinions without fear of censorship or reprisal.  ,  ,
The Dhillon Law Group employs Jonathan Shaw as a partner. Amber Hulse is the Republican nominee for South Dakota State Senate District 30 and a recent graduate of Georgetown Law School.
