By Jason Smith
Americans are growing increasingly alarmed over the Left’s relentless efforts to force their values, ideals, and way of life onto the rest of society, whether it’s in the classroom, the media, and even the health care system. And as we have seen over the last decade, Big Tech has become one of the Left’s most powerful tools in forcing their radical values and beliefs on the rest of America. What’s most alarming about this collusion between Big Tech and the Left is the threat it poses to one of our most important freedoms – the First Amendment.
Recently, the Supreme Court announced it will take up one of the most important cases involving the First Amendment in years. The lawsuit, led by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, accuses the federal government of teaming up with Big Tech to censor social media posts – including ones about the COVID-lab leak theory – that the Left deemed “controversial” or “misinformation.” Lower courts found that the federal government engaged in a coordinated effort to pressure Big Tech companies to censor conservative viewpoints without any legal authority to do so. If the Supreme Court sides with Attorney General Bailey and the people of Missouri, then the Biden administration – or any other future administration – will be prohibited from contacting social media companies to influence content decisions.
Big Tech and government officials shouldn’t be able to decide what is acceptable speech, but what’s even more infuriating is that more and more experts and even officials in the Biden administration believe that the lab-leak theory is credible, and in many cases the most likely explanation for the origin of COVID. The same was true with the coordinated effort to stop anyone from sharing the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. But it shouldn’t take conservatives having to prove that what they are saying is 100% true; the federal government has no business censoring Americans’ speech. That’s exactly why we have the First Amendment. The bottom line is that the First Amendment MUST be applied equally. But as we’ve seen time and again, that’s something the Left refuses to accept.
In the 2020 elections, Democrat lawmakers argued to Twitter employees that the First Amendment “isn’t absolute,” according to the Twitter Files, the series of documents released by Elon Musk after he bought the social media company, now known as X. The Twitter Files also confirmed that high-ranking Liberal employees at the social media company invented wild excuses to justify censoring and suppressing the New York Post’s bombshell – and factually correct – article that was published weeks before the 2020 elections about Hunter Biden’s laptop, which included information related to the Biden family’s shady business deals. Facebook admitted to censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story in response to demands by partisan intelligence community members. And then there’s Google Mail, which sent 70% of Republican campaign emails to people’s spam folders in the 2020 elections, compared to just 10% of emails sent by Democrat campaigns.
I hope that when the Supreme Court reviews this critical First Amendment case next year, it will do the right thing and rule that the federal government’s actions were unconstitutional, and make sure these attacks on our freedom of speech never happen again. But regardless of the outcome, House Republicans are committed to stopping the Left and Big Tech’s never-ending attacks on our freedoms. Whether it’s in our schools, on social media, and so much more, I will fight tooth and nail to stop the Left’s non-stop efforts to force their radical beliefs and liberal values on Missouri farmers, ranchers, and workers.
