Speech limits under instructions from the government violates 1st Amendment

Bob Unruh
WND News Center

Judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals are being told that Twitter – back in the day before it was turned over to new owner Elon Musk – actually was “enforcing the Biden administration’s policy” when it censored information about COVID-19.

It would be legal for Twitter, a private company, to decide what it does and does not allow on its platform.

But when it acts to enforce a government mandate in concert with the government, it becomes subject to the First Amendment’s requirements.

Officials with the American Freedom Law Center say they have petitioned for rehearing of their case before the 9th Circuit panel, as well as the full court.

The federal civil rights action, a class action case, is against Twitter and Joe Biden.

It charges “Twitter censored speech critical of the administration’s COVID-19 vaccination policy on behalf of the Biden administration in violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

It was Dr. Colleen Huber who posted a statement from a well-known Israeli newspaper reporting on findings of mortality rates relating to the COVID-19 vaccinations used in Israel.

Twitter responded by suspending Huber permanently.

It accused Huber, a well-respected and licensed naturopathic medical doctor in Arizona, of violating Twitter’s “policy.”

But, said the AFLC, “Twitter was in reality enforcing the Biden administration’s policy to silence anyone critical of COVID-19 vaccinations. Given the recent publication of the Twitter files outlining the White House-Twitter cozy censorship ‘partnership,’ the fact of an illegal conspiracy between the Biden administration and Twitter for Twitter to censor speech critical of the COVID vaccine policies on behalf of the government should surprise no one.”

The legal team said it was no surprise that a district court in California, “in Twitter’s backyard,” ignored compelling evidence of a conspiracy between Biden and Twitter, and ruled against the doctor.

On appeal, a panel made up of two judges appointed by the far-left Barack Obama, and a third appointed by Bill Clinton, left the result unchanged.

So, the AFLC said, its lawyers “filed a petition to have the matter reconsidered by the panel or reheard by the Ninth Circuit ‘en banc’ (i.e., all of the judges of the circuit*) because the panel’s decision not only contradicts Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit precedent, it mishandled a critically important First Amendment case. “

The new petition charges that what needs to be resolved is the government’s decision to use “private actors to censor speech of which the government disapproves”

“In contemporary times, this question takes on enormous consequences for liberty in general, political freedom in particular, and free speech most particularly. Large social media platforms and their concentration of economic power are relatively new to the law. Their unique ability to control the social and political messaging of public sentiment through hidden algorithms and even outright censorship has become a battleground for those in different and even adversarial political camps.”