Leila Fadel and National Public Radio recently interviewed me on free speech. While the program ominously warned that “what you’re about to hear is hate speech” in playing extreme voices on the right, it did interview me and former Columbia University president Lee Bollinger from the free speech community. I wanted to address a statement made about the program that is not accurate but has been repeated like a mantra by many seeking to dismiss the censorship system under the Biden Administration. The claim is that the Supreme Court rejected the claim of coordination between the government and social media companies. That is entirely untrue, but you do not have to take my word for it. The Supreme Court expressly stated that it was not doing so last year.
I appreciate the opportunity afforded by NPR to present the views of many in the free speech community. In all fairness to Fadel, it is also important to acknowledge that NPR was quoting a widely repeated claim by law professors. However, it is important to set this record straight on the matter.
During the program, Fadel quotes me: “You had a level of cooperation, coordination between the government and these other entities, that the effect was that thousands were censored.”
Fadel immediately rebuts the claim:
FADEL: It’s a charge often made by Republicans and Trump allies. Last year, the Supreme Court rejected the claim that social media companies were pressured to take down posts about COVID-19 and the 2020 election.
That is a reference to the court’s decision in Murthy v. Missouri last year. The states of Missouri and Louisiana, led by Missouri’s then-Attorney General (and now United States senator) Eric Schmitt, claimed that the federal government pressured social media companies to censor conservatives and critics. The court ruled 6-3 that the states lacked standing to bring the case.
However, in the opinion, the justices went out of their way to expressly refute the notion that they were ruling on the merits of the coordination with the social media companies. In footnote 3, the Court states that “Because we do not reach the merits, we express no view as to whether the Fifth Circuit correctly articulated the standard for when the Government transforms private conduct into state action.”
The opinion was based on standing, not whether coordination occurred or whether such coordination violated the First Amendment, as found by the district court.
Thus, it is demonstrably untrue that “the Supreme Court rejected the claim that social media companies were pressured to take down posts about COVID-19 and the 2020 election.”
Yet, anti-free speech figures and others have repeated this claim, including law professors. Most recently, I testified in the Senate on free speech where both law professor Mary Anne Franks and a senator repeated this claim. Professor Franks told the Committee:
“For Republicans to call yet another Congressional hearing to investigate the so-called “censorship industrial complex” of Biden administration officials, nonprofit organizations, and Big Tech companies allegedly collaborating to censor conversative speech—a conspiracy theory so ludicrous that even the current Supreme Court, stacked with a supermajority of far-right conservative judges, dismissed it out of hand last year in Murthy v. Missouri—while ignoring the current wholesale assault on the First Amendment by the Trump administration is a betrayal of the American people.”
Obviously, the hearing became quite heated between Professor Franks and the Committee, but two of us wanted to address the claim. (Fellow witness Benjamin Weingarten was able to note the countervailing language in the opinion as part of another question). It was a shame because we might have been able to fully refute this oft-repeated false claim. (The full testimony is available here). I would have welcomed an opportunity to have a civil exchange with Professor Franks and the Democratic senators on why this is not what the Supreme Court said in Murthy.
Instead, as shown on NPR, it continues to be repeated and replicated despite being demonstrably in conflict with the express words of the Court.
The effort to portray evidence of collaboration between the government and social media companies as a “conspiracy theory” or “myth” is all too familiar. It attempts to portray free speech advocates as unhinged or fringe figures to avoid answering the troubling questions raised by the Twitter Files, the Facebook Files, and thousands of pages of documentation produced in litigation and Congress.
Indeed, some apologists for the censorship system have attacked journalists and free speech advocates as fellow travelers of Vladimir Putin. That is why it was rather ironic to hear NPR raise the question on the program of whether Trump is “the biggest threat to [free speech] since the McCarthy era in the 1940s and ’50s, when fear mongering around Soviet and Communist influence led to the political persecution of academics and leftists?”
The program did not mention that it is the left who have been using McCarthy-like tactics against free speech advocates, including calling them traitors or questioning their loyalty. There was nary a mention of such attacks from the left.
Ironically, in a prior hearing, I warned that this was reminiscent of the McCarthy period where the FBI played a role in the establishment of blacklists for socialists, communists, and others. I encouraged Congress not to repeat its failures from the 1950s by turning a blind eye to such abuse.
This view was amplified by former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who was labeled a “Russian asset” by Hillary Clinton due to Gabbard’s anti-war positions.
If anything, my warning of McCarthy-like attacks and measures seemed to be taken more as a suggestion than an admonition by Democratic figures. Soon after the end of the hearing, MSNBC contributor and former Sen. Claire McCaskill appeared on MSNBC to denounce the member witnesses (Sen. Chuck Grassley, Sen. Ron Johnson, and former Rep. Gabbard) as “Putin apologists” and Putin lovers.
She exclaimed, “I mean, look at this, I mean, all three of those politicians are Putin apologists. I mean, Tulsi Gabbard loves Putin.”
It is obvious that few of these anti-free speech figures want to address the thousands of pages on coordination and pressure exercised by the government. They also do not want to address the express statements from social media executives (including in my testimony) stating that the government pressured them to censor critics and target individuals. As with the express statement of the Supreme Court, these direct contradictions are simply denied or dismissed.
What is missing is a sense of obligation to acknowledge the countervailing evidence. Unfortunately, we have come a long way from when Democratic icon Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan declared, “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”
Professor Turley, as usual, tries to misinterpret what the Surpreme court said in the Missouri vs. Murthy ruling. There is a lot more to it than just lack of standing. The court also pointed out that the states had no evidence that conservative’s speech was censored.
“ The Court concluded that the petitioners lacked standing for two main reasons:
First, the plaintiffs failed to establish a clear causal link between their past social media restrictions and the actions of the government defendants. Most of the plaintiffs could not demonstrate that their content was restricted due to government pressure rather than the platforms’ independent moderation policies. Even for Jill Hines, who made the strongest case, the connections were tenuous and did not clearly show that her restrictions were likely traceable to government coercion rather than Facebook’s own judgment.”
They didn’t have evidence of their claims. Cooperation is solely at the discretion of social media companies. A key fact Turley neglects to mention. Furthermore, the plaintiffs did not show that the government coerced or coordinated with social media to specifically censor conservative speech. This is what NPR and everyone else is talking about. Turley is in the minority with his view.
The real irony is Turley being on NPR and when they brought up the Trump administration’s attacks on free speech Turley mentions nothing. Trying to deport people for exercising their free speech rights and bullying schools into cracking down on dissent and “illegal protests”. Turley is pretty quiet about that and it is obvious why. He doesn’t want to incur the wrath of MAGA and suffer the consequences of daring to criticize Trump’s own attacks on free speech.
Pretty soon we will find out if the government has any real evidence of their claims against Mahmoud Khalil. If they can’t produce convincing evidence it will show he was targeted for his speech instead of the alleged “support for Hamas.”
George, Professor Turley is right here. The Court held that the standing requirement was not met because there was no causal link between Facebook’s action and the state representative. This is separate and apart from the merits claim as to whether Facebook was acting at the behest of the federal government. This is the type of mistake that news outlets screw up all the time. Of course, Turley’s critique is only on one side of the aisle, but that’s on brand.
That being said, Professor Turley has lost the right to be a full-fledged member of the “free speech community” after his lack of criticism for the McCarthy-esque Trump admin’s deportations of legal US residents based solely on their speech. Invoking McCarthy here but not there is simply risible.
Anonymous, I will have to disgree somewhat, while Turley is almost right, the whole point the states didn’t have standing is that they didn’t have evidence to argue with. How could the court decide on the merits if the states didn’t have evidence of their claims? They were essentially making arguments based purely on allegations.
I do agree that Turley had a good opportunity to chime in on Trumps’ own free speech attacks in this interview and clearly he avoided it like the plague he conveniently pivoted to a trivial matter to deflect from the obvious.
To be clear, justiciability issues like standing are separate from a holding on the merits.
A plaintiff has no standing, and therefore a court cannot hear, a case, in which a party claims that Party X injured Party Y if:
(1) the plaintiff has not suffered an injury
(2) there is no causal connection between the injury and the conduct before the Court; or
(3) a favorable decision by the court is unlikely to redress the injury.
Here, the Court held that the plaintiff lacked a causal connection between the injury and the conduct before the Court.
The “evidence” the Court referenced pertained to the connection between FB and the LA state representative. This was only evidence needed to determine whether the case was justiciable (i.e., whether the plaintiffs had standing to bring the claim).
Once it was determined that the claim was not justiciable, the Court declined to address (and by extension, review the evidence of) the merits claim, which relied on the coordination between the federal government and the social media companies.
It would be great if Turley actually broke down these issues for non-lawyers, but alas, here we are. I hope that helps!
It seems to me that the NPR people (they are neither correspondents nor journalists in my view), MSNBC talking heads, and the law professors are either willfully blind with regard to the actual meaning of the Supreme Court decision in Murthy v Missouri or they are simply too stupid to understand it. While the ignorance of the intellectually challenged NPR and MSNBC people is understandable, these possibilities are especially troubling coming from law professors.
# . It’s RICO…NPR is part of the cobweb of reparations..
Dear Mr. Turley,
the sooner the public funding is withheld from NPR and PBS the better off the country will be!!!
National Propaganda Radio is a crime scene of CIA lies meant to keep the Deep State in control. They are a disgrace to journalism.
Maybe Bupp, but they’ve managed to rob you of 36 trillion dollyers
“It was a shame because we might have been able to address this oft-repeated claim fully. (The full testimony is available here). I would have welcomed an opportunity to have a civil exchange with Professor Franks and the Democratic senators on this widely repeated claim.”
**************************
Silly, JT. You can’t have a “civil exchange” with a Leftist. They don’t accept your norms or the lofty aspirations of learned debating in acdemia that you hold so dear. Instead, they want the nasty confrontation since it makes for vivacious, mindlessly chattering braggadocio at the faculty cocktail party!! Too bad E.A. Poe isn’t still around. Imagine the fun he’d have at that truly “masked ball” with all those Che-in-waiting “buffoons” behind the ivy-hidden “strong and lofty wall.”
#. Meso, Hell is their domain. Their hospitality is legend.
Hot buttered rum and brimstone is a specialty.
Thank you professor for pointing out the facts and the truth.
Defund NPR. George Soros can fund their/his lies since he is paying for all of the Leftists attacks on Americans
Pam Bondi is investigating George and his son Alex Soros for funding Leftists violent activities. In the words of Rep Jasmine Crockett, George Soros and his minions must be “taken down”
https://thenationaldesk.com/news/americas-news-now/jasmine-crockett-demands-musk-be-taken-down-during-telsa-protest-call
False claims? JT, you are a joke. DJT has been yelling falsehoods for years and you sit back in your easy chair and talk about Hunters laptop with porn. Nice job.
Meanwhile since trump has been sworn in as President.
The stock market has crashed
Measles is spreading including 3 dead people.
Whooping cough is spreading including 1 dead infant.
Putin is drinking champagne in celebration of his stooge Tulsi in the White House
Pretty much every country on earth hates us.
Is the above MAGA?
Oh yea, MAGA is make Attorneys Get Attorneys. See Wisconsin for the latest evidence.
Nice job DJT.
and other such Trump/Elon-deranged leftist/Democrat/NPR/MSLSD talking points 🙄
Was there something untrue in the above post?
Measles spread through a Texas Anabaptist community much like measles spread through an Ohio Anabaptist community in 2014. Trump did not cause vaccine hesitancy among the Anabaptists, no more than Obama did in 2014.
But we know who brought measles to the Ohio group: two church members who had traveled internationally. Consider that the Texas breakout is at our southern border, and the cause seems obvious. Trump was not the one who let diseased migrants freely enter kur country.
michaeldix2f64102fb2,
Well said. This measles hysteria and leftist trying to some how tie it to Trump is stupid and crazy. One could say it was anti-science.
From ABC news,
“Almost all of the cases are in unvaccinated individuals or in individuals whose vaccination status is unknown, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS).
Three of the 505 cases are among residents who have been vaccinated with one dose of the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine. Seven cases are among those vaccinated with two doses.”
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/measles-cases-texas-outbreak-surpass-500-24-new/story?id=120588600
And why is there hesitancy about the vaccine? Did Obama sow uncertainty? trump certainly has, And JFK Jr has made money off his anti vaccine stance.
michael dix: stop lying. The Texas outbreak is not from migrants. From the Texas Department of Health:
“What is known about this outbreak and the community where it’s occurring?
This outbreak started in a Mennonite community in West Texas where there are low vaccination rates. Many of the children are homeschooled or attend smaller private schools, and many are unvaccinated.
This is not atypical for the larger outbreaks that we’ve seen in the United States in the recent past. In 2019, the U.S. saw 1,274 measles cases, including a large outbreak of slightly more than 900 cases in an Orthodox Jewish community in New York. In 2014, there was a measles outbreak of 383 cases in an Amish community in Ohio.
These larger measles outbreaks tend to occur in close-knit communities with very low vaccination rates.”
He burned our crops, poisoned our water supply, and delivered a plague unto our houses!
Young people cannot read anymore at the level of a SCOTUS decision. They prefer picture books, what we called cartoons at their age. All they know is that “the right lost in the Supreme Court”. As to why, (plaintiffs were found to lack standing), they just make something up that suits their narrative, or parrot a media pundit who is equally illiterate.
The phrase “free speech community” is a bit chilling. I thought we were a free speech country.
🤔 Good point.
@Diogenes
No doubt. Dems really want people to believe their inalienable rights were, in fact, granted. ‘Allowed’ by dems and the unelected. And can be rescinded if they like. It’s madness.
Covid was the defining moment for this mentality globally. It’s real evil by a group of people that consider themselves a real ruling class, and media and academia are no exception.
Diogenes’ remark is spot on. Thanks for highlighting how language can be wielded to reshape the way we think. The term ‘free speech community’ is particularly telling, implying a separation from the broader concept of free speech, as though we need a specific category for it. We are a free speech country, yet Professor Turley’s words didn’t demonstrate that showing how the manipulation of the left can alter perception even of the most educated.
Murthy v. Missouri was “a win” for the censorship regime and its supporters in the same way transgender males are winning athletic events when girls refuse to compete with them. That describes the moral and intellectual depth of the modern Democrat. A win is simply a righteous vindication of their ideology. A loss is obviously evidence every evil known to man is taking over the planet.
Take a look at everything they do with that in mind. They’re pure idealists at heart. They believe in the destination with all the thought of a driver with a BAC 3 times over the legal limit. Carnage? Not their fault. But they no doubt have another great idea on how to fix it.
This is a quote from Leila Fadel from 2006. Found in Wikepedia
“My goal is to find the missing voices, the ones I heard on the streets of Beirut and Saudi Arabia but which were often missing in American media… Great journalism is the ability to capture moments in time, weave them together, and tell the story of all people without condescension, without judgment and without an agenda.”
She obviously has fallen from her stated lofty goals. Misrepresenting facts and court decisions or non decisions apparently are not a part of her journalistic ethics.
She is, of course, entitled to her opinion but we don’t have to put up with lies and certainly not when they are paid for with American Tax dollars.
Former Sen. Claire McCaskill and Former Senator Hilary Clinton seem to have Putin frozen into their brains.
Of course I see them as statues standing guard at the Gates of Hell.
I doubt the journalist read the opinion. Instead she relied on the opinions of others in the leftsphere bubble she inhabits. She probably didn’t intend to deceive. She’s just puking up what people she trusted told her.
It’s not at all unlike how the high status influencers in the leftsphere bubble told everyone how sharp Biden is. Or how they routinely refer to Trump as a Nazi or Fascist. There’s no critical thinking going on. They all just puke up the same story.
#. It’s simply called lying . They think it’s clever to mock the concept of free speech by demonstrating it includes lies. They are free to lie. Gosh they’re smart.
And those “missing voices” are paid by USAID and coached to say what Empire wants us to hear. Scary terrorist voices mistranslated, and sad women who desperately want the US to bomb them so they will be allowed to drive a car.
End State Media…heck I think we should jail media…if they are committing conspiracy!
Can Professor Turley be completely oblivious to the fact that he is, in fact, contributing to the perpetuation of woke, left-wing, lies from NPR and similar Marxist propaganda sources by appearing on such programs? I would much rather see all reasonable commentators shun those organizations and allow them to more quickly reach their natural, well-earned, demise while beating their gums to their paltry core audience of the permanently brainwashed.
Frady, it does make Turley sound oblivious to such facts, but If Turley appeared on the Joe Bannon Show, we would witness what we already understand. His watered-down opinion on NPR is a remarkable revelation to those leftists listening. Which has more significant importance?
My strong suspicion is that there are more listeners of Bannon’s show who are capable of being persuaded by reasonable, rational points made by the opposition than listeners of NPR who fall into that category. In fact, I find it difficult to imagine that there is any significant number of NPR listeners who have anything remaining that us identifiable as a functioning mind to change. Now, if he is on these programs to generate revenue that funds other, more effective battles against the irrational, that would be reasonable. So would appearing to pay the rent, or to keep food on his table. But I get the impression that the Professor believes he can change minds directly by appearing on NPR and the like, and I think that is most likely delusional.
You are entitled to your opinion and I would be most satisfied if you were correct, but I feel otherwise. Changing minds isn’t immediate. First the mind has to recognize there is a debate. Turley accomplishes that speaking to NPR. Those listening to Bannon already know a debate exists.
“Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan declared, “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” This was said by a liberal Democrat who surprisingly found that he and Richard M. Nixon had lots in common. But those were the days when Republicans and Democrats were Americans first and party loyalists second. Senator Corey Booker somewhat paraphrases what Moynihan had in mind when he, Booker, says or uses the expression “my truth” to assert some credibility to an otherwise incredible claim.
But, alas, Corey, there is no such thing. It’s an oxymoron – sort of like “jumbo shrimp” or “small crowd.” Truth is universal and exists in the reality of something. By personalizing it as “your” truth, you destroy its meaning. This is the essence of the liberals’ way of thinking, i.e., reframe the “truth” with their manufactured facts and restate the claim. But the public is on to this and understands fully how ridiculous it is – just as Moynihan observed. NPR is Hemmingway’s bull; it’s dead but doesn’t yet know it.
JJC,
Great comment.
Sweet Jesus JJC – Where have you been Hiding?
Excellent retort! (Said the dead Bull)
jjC-Excellent comment. Bravo!!
I gave up on NPR years ago when they diminished the contributions of a mother who raised her kids to become successful adults with their own families in favor of the woman to drives a dump truck and boasting about her couple of abortions. They have so distorted American traditional values, I cannot listen. Moreover, it is apparent from their leadership in recent testimony they are totally committed to carry on regardless. Finally, they are effete and arrogant and dwell in a hard-shell microcosm of their own creation. So why do an interview with these dolts? You know they will be biased, unfair, and otherwise lie.
PBS turned Washington Week in Review over to the ideologues at The Atlantic no-longer monthly.
gdonaldallen-Because only Dolts interview Dolts.
Excellent comment
Wasn’t public broadcasting’s purpose to bring programming to people in underserved areas? How many people are without media brainwashing access today? Can we just stop all federal funding of the CPB, NPR, PBS complex? And while we are at it why don’t we halt ALL funding of NGOs? Let’s get our tax dollars out of ideological grifters’ claws and out of the private charity and partisan think tank business.
Add getting rid of most if not all 501C3’s as well.
Yet one more reason to defund NPR/PBS – let them compete in the marketplace. There is no need for publicly funded statist propaganda
“There is no need for publicly funded statist propaganda”
It doesn’t even fit that category well at this point. Maybe “statist-in-exile” propaganda?
We are at the point in time predicted at 2 Timothy 4:3!
I’ll say it again.
All Dems are either followers or puppets of Satan.
Cordially,
Noone
Issues there buddy?
Democrats are the most greedy, hate-filled, lying, violent, hypocrites on earth!
A breath of fresh air that Leila Fadel and NPR acknowledged that what they espouse boils down to “what you’re about to hear is hate speech”.
Sorry…forgot…
🙂