To ensure that a presidential administration doesn’t cajole social-media companies into suppressing information, we need more than legal precedent — we need law.
To ensure that a presidential administration doesn’t cajole social-media companies into suppressing information, we need more than legal precedent — we need law.
‘T he Government has used its power to silence the opposition.” These are words you never wish to hear from a federal judge. Yet they effectively summarize the findings of Judge Terry A. Doughty, who has issued a preliminary injunction against the Biden administration for pressuring social-media companies to restrict free speech.
The facts of this case are indisputable. Since taking office, Biden officials have urged social-media companies to silence conservative viewpoints. Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki admitted as much in 2021. Recorded communications, such as a White House email to YouTube pressuring the platform to censor those raising questions about mRNA vaccines, confirms it. This didn’t happen once or twice, but hundreds of times.
The administration downplays its actions by branding censorship as a necessary weapon in the war against “disinformation,” “misinformation,” and “malinformation.” But Judge Doughty is far closer to reality when he writes, “During the COVID-19 pandemic . . . the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’”
Thankfully, we have a protection against totalitarianism in this country. It’s called the Constitution, and Judge Doughty’s injunction against the administration is, by and large, a sound application of constitutional principles. Nevertheless, it’s uncertain if this injunction will be enough. There is no guarantee, after all, that higher courts will uphold Judge Doughty’s exceptionally broad ruling. To discourage future censorship from the Biden White House — or any White House — we need more than legal precedent. We need law.
That’s why I’m reintroducing the PRESERVE Online Speech Act. This bill would require internet companies such as Google, Meta, Truth, and Twitter to publicly disclose government-censorship requests and any actions taken in response to them under pain of a $50,000-per-day fine. It would also require the Federal Communications Commission to submit an annual report to Congress on all government-censorship requests.
These common-sense measures do not prevent the government from communicating with internet companies for legitimate reasons. But by bringing such communication into the light, they hold the White House accountable to the American people, thereby ensuring that no rogue administration can secretly operate as an unofficial “Ministry of Truth.”
My colleagues in the House and the Senate now face a clear choice: Pass the PRESERVE Online Speech Act and rebuild some measure of public faith in national institutions, or kill this bill and do the opposite. This isn’t melodrama — it’s just the truth. We cannot protect so-called public servants who blatantly violate the First Amendment without losing our constituents’ trust.
Benjamin Franklin put it well when he said republics “derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates.” Allowing the government to shadow-censor the internet will weaken our nation in the end. Forcing the government to work under the public eye, in contrast, will strengthen it.