A Win for the First Amendment, and a Loss for Partisans Who Want to Weaponize Censorship

July 17, 2023

One thing is clear about Missouri v. Biden: The decision cannot be understood by viewing it through a polarized lens.

by Robert Corn-Revere Reason.com

On America’s birthday, yet another front in the culture war opened over the meaning of free speech.

The provocation? On July 4, a federal court ordered Joe Biden’s White House and a bevy of federal agencies and officials not to pressure social media platforms to delete or suppress broad categories of information, including posts on the pandemic, the 2020 election, and Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Initial reporting on Judge Terry A. Doughty’s 155-page opinion in Missouri v. Biden reflected our polarized times. The Washington Post labeled the decision a “win for the political right” while The New York Times called it “a victory for Republicans.” The headline for the Post story placed quotation marks around the word censorship.