The only hope is that this ugly, complicated and regressive piece of legislation ends up before a judge who understands that freedom of expression means nothing if held hostage to the views of the European Commission on pandemic-preparedness, the Russia-Ukraine war, or what counts as “offensive” or “hateful” speech.
Covid-19 changed the world forever. Moral questions were buried by authoritarians and their water carriers. Rational individuals were silenced, censored, canceled, and lost their jobs. A consensus exists today among far too many Americans – that the same response must be used next time.
If there were any remaining doubts about the federal government’s censorship activities, this new evidence should settle every question. During the Covid years, the government effectively nationalized all the main social media portals and converted them to become propaganda vehicles for bureaucrats while demoting or completely blocking contrary views. There is simply no way this practice can survive serious juridical scrutiny.
iVerify’s power lies in its supranational infrastructure and ability to determine truth as an apparent authority source. Unfortunately, its manufactured ownership over the truth can easily be weaponized towards mass censorship of materials harmful to the elite’s bottom line. If it becomes a prominent aspect of the already treacherous information environment, UNDP’s iVerify only promises to worsen matters while further threatening the (remaining) sovereignty of nation states everywhere.
The hunt for dissenters took strange forms. Those who held gatherings were shamed. People who did not socially distance were called disease spreaders. The mask, no matter how obviously ineffective, was imposed as a tactic of humiliation and an exclusionary measure that targeted the incredulous. It was also a symbol: stop talking because your voice does not matter. Your speech will be muffled.
While the government’s denials and deflections are insulting to the citizens they purport to represent, we must remain focused on their aim: they appealed Doughty’s order because they oppose constitutional restraints on their control of information. We would hope that requiring the government to obey the Constitution would be uncontroversial; now, it may signify whether the rule of law still stands in the United States.
“L’Etat, c’est moi” – “I am the state” – Louis XIV is supposed to have said. And in a contemporary echo of that famous phrase, EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton repeatedly stressed on Monday that “I am the regulator” when lambasting social media networks for “not having done enough” during the recent French riots and threatening them with sanctions, including even banishment, if they should remain similarly inactive after August 25.
None of us ever wanted to live in a country in which the ruling regime openly expresses opposition to core constitutional rights that many generations of Americans thought were guaranteed by law. The injunction of Missouri v. Biden does nothing other than remind the government of those rights. And this is precisely why the Biden administration so strongly objects.
One naturally wants to believe that an issue one is involved in is of world-historical importance. But as the judge himself wrote in the decision, “If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.” That, my friends, is a strong claim, but as I have previously argued, an entirely accurate one.
One might wonder, are they suggesting that we trade our modern conveniences and urban landscapes for a romanticized past where disease still ravaged populations, but we were more “in harmony” with nature? Were stay-at-home orders a proxy for keeping us from trodding foot on nature?
I created a Meetup group called “Covid Contrarians” in New York City. The idea was just to meet other people like me, who thought our governments were overreacting to the Covid situation. My big plan was no more than, get together and schmooze over coffee or a beer. The group lasted a few weeks before Meetup declared that it was spreading misinformation, and erased it from the website.
