Blog Post #9: EOTO Presentation 2 - Censorship

Censorship

    In today's modern age, we live in a digital era where everything is online. After seeing some controversial things online, I end up seeing a lot of the stuff end up getting censored. It is the censoring of someone's voice or opinion that is starting to kill people's thoughts and creativity though. I know over the last few years the Democratic Party has taken a lot of control of the media. Making it controversial to have a different opinion than someone else, which happens way too often in today's society.  

Murthy V. Missouri

    The Murthy V. Missouri case is about today's modern age of censorship. It had claimed that the federal government pressured social media companies to censor conservative views and criticism of the Biden administration in violation of the right to the freedom of expression. The government came out and said it only had made requests, not demands, that social media operators remove certain misinformation. What valuable information I learned from the court case, though, was that the US government can ask social media companies to remove certain posts or information without violating the free speech laws. 

    Where is the line between giving people advice and forcing them to do it? If the government crosses the line, meaning that if they're indirectly silencing people, that is a violation of the constitution and on the other hand, if the government can't give advice at all, how do we get rid of the misinformation that we are having a problem with in the first place. Missouri argued that the government was forcing companies to act, which was a violation of the 1st Amendment. 

  

 The Supreme Court had ruled on June 26th, 2024, in a six to three decision that the plaintiffs lacked the necessary legal standing to sue the federal government. Meaning the case was centered around the violation of the 1st amendment but did not have enough evidence to back it up. During this court ruling, the ruling effectively avoided addressing multiple times whether that the government's communication with social media platforms accounted as unconstitutional or not. The government had engaged in a covert form of censorship by pressuring platforms like Facebook to restrict specific content, including things like Republican views and COVID-19 policies back in 2020. 

 

Hunter Bidens

Laptop

    The son of President Joe Biden (Hunter Bidens) laptop was reportedly left at a Delaware hardware repair shop in 2019. Apparently, the owner of the shop turned the laptop over to the FBI and shared its contents with trump allies like Rudy Giuliani who then passed it out to media outlets. social media networks restricted the initial reporting at first, Social media networks restricted the initial reporting at first, it cited concerns about hacked and unverified information. People criticize this, calling it a suppression that could have influenced public perception during the 2020 presidential election. The information that ended up getting revealed was emails, text messages and other files claiming potential business dealings connecting to his father's political influence. 

    

    At first, all the big platforms like Twitter and Facebook limited the stories reach, citing concerns about it being false information.  Hunter Biden's financial influence, particularly his work in Ukraine, have been under investigation by congress and federal agencies for quite a while. This sparked even more debates about free speech and censorship. While republicans were saying it was alleged corruption in our governments, democrats were framing it as republicans putting a stain on Biden's campaign.