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Speaker 2: Hey, Carrie, this is Robert Ian with conquer Change dot com.
The late to Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick moynihan famously said,
you are entitled to your opinion, but you are not
entitled to your own facts. The challenge in recent years
is that individual opinions have been drowned out and actual
facts have been gaslighted in the constant disarray of confusion
we refer to as mainstream media. Today, we'll discuss some
of what that gaslighting actually looks like, how it transcends
into everyday media discord, and how otherwise intelligent and well
informed people seem to somehow know what isn't so. On
April ninth, constitutional law scholar Jonathan Turley posted on his
website Jonathanturley dot Org a commentary titled NPR repeats false
claim that the court rejected claims of government involvement in
censorship efforts. Turley recounts a recent interview of his on
NPR to discuss free speech. His blog article addresses a
statement made regarding his NPR interview that is not accurate
but has been repeated like a mantra by many who
are seeking to dismiss what he calls the censorship system
under the Biden administration. The claim others are making and
inferring is that the Supreme Court rejected the claim of
coordination between the government and social media companies. Turley points
out this is entirely untrue and urges readers not to
take his word for it, but rather to read the
Supreme Court decision themselves, in which the Court expressly states otherwise.
To set the record straight, Turley cites and PR host
Lyla Fedel, who quoted him as saying, you had a
level of cooperation coordination between the government and these other entities,
that the effect was that thousands were censored. The host
then immediately rebutted Turley's comment by stating that last year
the Supreme Court rejected the claim the social media companies
were pressured to take down posts about CV nineteen and
the election from five years ago. Turley further clarifies that
this comment made by NPR is a reference to the
Court's decision in which the states of Missouri and Louisiana
claimed that the federal government pressured social media companies to
censor conservatives and critics. But the Court actually ruled, in
a six to three ruling, is that those states, Missouri
and Louisiana, lacked standing to bring the case. A critical
point in the Court's opinion is that 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. To underscore this point, Turley cites
footnote number three of the ruling, where the Court explicitly
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. In other words, all the Supreme Court
decided is that the two states bringing the case lacked
standing to do so. A decision on the case itself
about whether coordination actually occurred or whether such coordination violated
the First Amendment was never rendered by the Supreme Court.
Let me repeat that a decision on the case itself
was never rendered by the U. S. Supreme Court. Turly
further articulated the clarification of his statement by saying it
is demonstrably untrue that the Supreme Court rejected the claim
that social media companies were pressured to take down posts
about CV nineteen and the election. He then recounts how
other anti free speech figures have repeated this bogus claim, namely,
when he testified in the US Senate, a law professor
Mary Anne Franks and a senator both repeated the claim.
He quotes Professor Frank's comments to the committee where she
said for Republicans to call yet another congressional hearing to
investigate the so called censorship industrial complex of the Biden administration, officials,
nonprofit organizations, and big tech companies allegedly collaborating to censor
conservative speech, a conspiracy theory so ludicrous. And here's where
she repeats the bogus claim when she says that even
the current Supreme Court, stacked with a super majority 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. Turley's
blog links to the full transcripts so you can read
it in if you like. The bottom line is that
this often repeated false claim that continues to be made
at Senate hearings and on major news shows by people
who should know better and probably do, this false claim
is in conflict with the express words of the court.
In other words, this claim that the US Supreme Court
rendered a decision on this case is a lie. I
have followed Jonathan Turley's analysis of major issues for three decades,
ever since the Bill Clinton administration, where I recall his
position was that Clinton should be impeached but not removed.
Now fast forward to today, Turley is no fan of
President Trump. What he is a fan of, though, is
the Constitution he always has. What became painfully obvious as
I read this article is the realization that in the
mainstream media we seem to have fewer and fewer credible
and articulate defenders of the US Constitution and the principle
of free speech. Jonathan Turley is one of those defenders.
He says, the effort to portray evidence of collaboration between
the government and social media companies as a quote, conspiracy
theory or a myth is all too familiar. He says,
it attempts to portray free speech advocates as unhinged or
fringe figures in order to avoid answering the troubling questions
raised by things like the Twitter files, the Facebook files,
and thousands of pages of document produced in both litigation
and in Congress. He says, some apologists for the censorship
system have even attacked journalists as fans of Putin, which
is why when media outlets like NPR compare the Trump
administration to the McCarthyism of the nineteen fifties that resulted
in persecution of academics and leftists, they neglect to mention
that today it is the left who has been using
the very same tactics against free speech advocates. Turley points
out that Hillary Clinton has called Tulsi Gabbard a Russian asset. Apparently,
those who support restrictions on free speech do not want
to address specific statements from social media executives that the
government pressured them to censor critics and target individuals, which
represents a clear and present danger that lurks within our
social media backdrop and out of control mainstream media, where
free speech, or more accurately, what remains of free speech,
has been weaponized against ordinary people. The bottom line is
that censorship is the antithesis of freedom and cannot be tolerated.
And until next time, this is Robert Ian with conquer
Change dot com. Thanks Carrie, thanks.
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