Explosive Social Media Legal Case You Need To Read About
This case will have ramifications on Rights Laundering beyond imagination
You’ll want to review The Daily Beagle’s article on Rights Laundering if you haven’t read it already to understand why this is major, as it explains a lot of the context behind what the US government is trying to do.
You’ll be forgiven if you thought this was about the distract-a-spat between Elon Musk and Twitter, but no, this massive case is between the State of Missouri joined with Louisiana, versus the Biden administration.
The filing asserts that the Biden administration has been engaging in behind the scenes proxy censorship (read: Rights Laundering) on social media, and are using it to suppress political views which are ‘disfavourable’ to that of the US government:
Plaintiff States allege that Government Defendants have colluded with and/or coerced social media companies to suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content on social media platforms by labeling the content “disinformation,” “misinformation,” and “malinformation.”
Plaintiff States allege the suppression of disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and contents constitutes government action and therefore violates Plaintiff States’ freedom of speech in violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Essentially, what the States of Missouri and Louisiana are arguing is that the US government is engaging in de facto Rights Laundering by using social media as a proxy.
This isn’t without real world precedent either, back in 2021 the US government flagged people’s posts for “COVID misinformation” (in their opinionated view), and verbally encouraged them to delete posts as well, overstepping the bounds of First Amendment rights.
Why is it explosive?
In a court case, a lawyer can compel what is known as “discovery”, where the other side essentially have to disclose any and all respondant documents to the other side’s query.
This works both ways, and most of the legwork in litigation is during the discovery phase as it often involves sifting through a lot of documents. Essentially, it allows both sides to know the ‘facts of the matter’ well in advance of the court case so there are no surprises, and most of the many months of litigation is typically spent here.
In this case, the discovery is pretty much one-way, as there is little to ‘discover’ from the State of Missouri and Louisiana in relation to the case. On the other hand, the US government stands to lose everything because there are a lot of documents to discover, and timed with the Elon Musk distract-a-spat with Twitter, could be a doubly-whammy.
Can’t they just… [insert bad idea here]
Usually people will suggest that maybe the other person could just ‘delete’ or ‘not supply’ the evidence. Deletion is perjury, and results in judges typically declaring “spoliation” of the evidence.
This means the judge presumes the absolute worst was true of the documents, and rules as if the deleted evidence would have proven that was the case, because why delete it unless it shows something very incriminating?
Failure to supply will result in the judge issuing a subpeona. Failure to comply with the subpeona typically ends up with a ‘contempt of court’ charge, of which the judge has absolute discretion to invoke however they see fit. They could keep fining the person until they turn over the respondant documents, or they could jail the person until the documents are turned over.
Now, you might suggest the US government just withhold internal documents arbitrarily, however their employees will be subpeona’d to testify, and if there are any narrative inconsistencies between US government’s documents and that of the employees (who don’t have deep legal pockets), for example, an employee references documents US government did not turn over, the judge is very likely to rule against the US government for their deception.
Basically, it is explosive because it is very likely to blow open the extent of the US government’s Rights Laundering operation thus bringing down the entire facade of ‘social media impartiality’.
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What are your thoughts on the Missouri case?
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