A three judge panel on the US court of appeals ruled:
Defendants, and their employees and agents, shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly, to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech. That includes, but is not limited to, compelling the platforms to act, such as by intimating that some form of punishment will follow a failure to comply with any request, or supervising, directing, or otherwise meaningfully controlling the social media companies’ decision-making processes.
Thanks @PatB. The story is nicely relayed by Dr B - given that following the Great Barringdon declaration the word came from on high that these people need to be smeared bad, and fast.
It’s good news, but also worrying that the public may NEED a constitution to protect them against state and corporate ravaging their basic freedoms, and most countries don’t have one, as far as I know (or think, as I don’t know at all ).
And spooks and crooks will have a degree of exemption:
“The decision isn’t perfect. Some entities at the heart of the government’s censorship enterprise can still organize to suppress speech. For instance, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) within the Department of Homeland Security can still work with academics to develop a hit list for government censorship. And the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Fauci’s old organization, can still coordinate devastating takedowns of outside scientists critical of government policy.”
But following the interim win in the summer (known as Biden v Missouri!?), they are over the next hurdle, and TPTB will inevitably drag the race towards the big, final one - the Supreme Court.
I feel we all have a runner in this race. Whatever happens in the US will still be very influential in the west.
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