Panels on CNN and MSNBC did not react well Wednesday to a federal judge’s ruling to block the Biden administration from coordinating with social media companies to censor Americans.
U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty ruled Tuesday that the Biden administration likely violated the First Amendment by colluding with Big Tech companies to censor speech it didn’t like during the COVID plandemic, calling it “Orwellian.”
“This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech,” the judge noted. “American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country…the evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario.”
Rather than celebrate the judge’s efforts to protect free speech from an overreaching government, the CNN panel took pains to smear the judge’s deicison and downplay his harsh criticism of the Biden administration’s censorship efforts.
“It’s a dramatic decision by this judge if you read through it. He’s citing literature, to George Washington and Ben Franklin. Here’s what really is astonishing to me. This is a conservative ideology that clearly comes through in this decision. It’s a conservative political ideology,” said CNN senior legal analyst Eli Honig.
Author and MSNBC contributor Walter Isaacson claimed the judge’s decision to protect free speech “goes too far,” arguing that the government has its own “free speech” that allows it to “push back when they see things on social media they think are dangerous.”
The Department of Homeland Security, one of the main agencies that worked with Big Tech to censor speech, decreed last year in an internal intelligence bulletin that some free speech, including criticism of the 2020 election and “government overreach,” are potential signs of terrorism.
The mainstream media’s role is no longer to hold the powerful accountable and defend free speech, but to protect the powerful and denigrate free speech as “dangerous.”
