In an ideal world, there should be no problem with a government official going to a company and giving that company the government’s opinion. Hence, in that ideal world, it should be no problem for the government to go to, say, Facebook and tell them that so-and-so’s post on COVID is contrary to what the government believes is in the interest of public health, and then Facebook can do what it wants with that information without fear of reprisal in either direction.

The problem is that we don’t live in an ideal world. Instead, we live in a world where the government is like the mafia (“it’d be a shame if something happened to your little website there”), and, worse, it’s a politicized mafia. Further, government now reaches into virtually every corner of our lives, meaning there is no end to the government trying to put its thumb on scale.

Communists like Jackson don’t care about the 1A when it protects speech they don’t like, so we already know how she’s going to rule. Some conservative 1A purists may side with her for different reasons, but it will take an awful lot of pretending not to know things about government — especially today’s government — to do so.

[Post edited by Los Angeles Hoo at 03/19/2024 09:45AM]