Wednesday’s CNN This Morning criticized a federal judge’s ruling that the Biden Administration may not ask social media companies to take down certain content. Senior media analyst Sara Fischer insisted that controlled conversation ensured public health, while senior legal analyst Elie Honig called it “one of the most aggressive, far-reaching rulings you’ll ever see,” micromanagement, and “conservative political ideology.” Podcaster Errol Louis said it reminded him of a live-streamed 12 year old girl suicide that was not taken down for two weeks and asserted the judge wrote the injunction for attention.
“Those are things that, you know, the government would suggest or argue are a public safety initiative, something that we need to have controlled conversation over in order to ensure that the public is healthy,” Fischer explained, arguing for controlled conversations instead of free speech and free press.
“If you're asking my opinion, I think this whole thing is kind of a racket. You know, it suggests to me that there is a far more serious allegation of government intervention here than there actually is proof of one existing,” she continued, blatantly suppressing any reference to the Twitter Files, which documented requests from the executive branch to censor information about COVID-19.
Honig blamed conservatives for the decision, which he insisted micromanaged the executive branch:
This is a conservative ideology that clearly comes through in this decision. It's a conservative political ideology, Right? We saw some of the quotes questioning vaccines, questioning masks, conservative talking points. But the ruling itself is the opposite of judicial conservatism. This is one of the most aggressive, far-reaching rulings you'll ever see. What this judge is purporting to do is to micromanage, really, the day-to-day interactions between, essentially, the entire executive branch, all these agencies that are listed as defendants, and the leading social media companies.
Louis agreed and used the live-streamed suicide of a 12 year old as a strawman to villainize the ruling:
You know, as I was reading through the opinion, I was reminded of the case in 2017, I think it was. Twelve-year-old girl live streams her own suicide. Right? And it took Facebook two weeks before they even took it down. If the federal government can't pick up the phone and call those companies and say, What the hell is going on here, or take this content down, we're all in a lot of trouble.
Additionally, Louis called the case “a deep state conspiracy” and accused the judge of using flowery language to obtain a national audience:
And so the case itself, I think it's clearly grandstanding. Not only do the facts not support this deep state conspiracy theory, but you know, to release it on July 4th and to, you know, sort of load in all of the flowery language and sort of, you know, quote literature, the judge wants to be on the national stage. Congratulations, you're there.
Hosts Phil Mattingly and Poppy Harlow joined in disparaging the judge and the case. Both referred to the judge as a Trump appointee, and Harlow attempted to discredit the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, likely the case’s next stop, as the most conservative and thus likely to hold up such a ruling. She alleged that Republican lawmakers typically went after tech CEOs, accusing them of censorship, and now pivoted to accusing the government’s conduct as well.
CNN hosts and commentators ridiculed the ruling by suppressing evidence ill-fitted to their opinion, exaggerating the consequences, insinuating bias, and questioning the judge’s credibility. While Fischer may be disappointed with the lack of control on social media, she may rest assured that CNN airs a carefully controlled and orchestrated narrative.
GoDaddy sponsored CNN's biased coverage.
Relevant transcripts are below, click "expand" to read.
CNN This Morning
7/5/2023
6:05 AM EasternPOPPY HARLOW: Also this: a federal judge is now blocking the Biden administration from asking social media companies to take down certain content. This is a big deal. And this could be a huge blow to the White House's fight against misinformation about COVID vaccines, elections, and many other critical issues. It's a big win for the Republican attorneys general who sued and accused the federal government of censorship.
PHIL MATTINGLY: Now, in his ruling the Trump-appointed judge writes, quote, "During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian 'Ministry of Truth'." Really subtle there.
Let's bring in CNN business and politics correspondent Vanessa Yurkevich; CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig; CNN political commentator and political anchor for Spectrum News, Errol Louis.
Vanessa, I want to start with you. This was stunning yesterday. I've been talking to Biden administration officials. They were very surprised, particularly by the scale of the ruling and what it actually means. What more do we know?
VANESSA YURKEVICH: It essentially is banning key government agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI, the Justice Department, the CDC, and about 12 key administration officials, including the White House press secretary and the U.S. surgeon general from communicating with social media companies, which include Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Google, Instagram over concerns that this judge has about the communications that they've had related to the pandemic.
Now, this goes back to a 2022 lawsuit that was filed by two state attorneys generals [SIC] from Missouri and from Louisiana, who say that the Biden administration overstepped in their communication to these social media companies, specifically around key issues like election integrity, vaccine misinformation, and security of voting by mail.
Now, this judge is essentially saying that there is enough evidence to say that there is concern about the communications. The White House, on the other hand, saying that they believe that they acted in the best interests of the country. They believe that it is the responsibility of these social media companies to police their own content online, but ultimately, the social media companies need to make their own independent decisions about that content.
Now, Judge Doughty, he is a Trump appointee. He has yet to rule on this case, but this basically is a big win for these states that are suing the Biden administration over what they consider violations of First Amendment rights, and in the communications that they had with these big social media companies, who have a lot of power; and essentially raising concerns about what those communications looked like.
HARLOW: I think it's really so interesting on so many aspects. We're going to bring Sara Fischer into the conversation on the tech side, because we haven't heard from the big tech companies responding yet, from Google, which owns YouTube, or Twitter, et cetera. But just on the law, yes, this is a Trump-appointed judge, but this judge was confirmed 98-0 by the Senate. Just reading the words in this injunction, a, quote, "massive effort by the defendants to suppress speech based on content" -- those are the judge's words, calling the present case, quote, "arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in the United States' history" -- Elie.
ELIE HONIG: Yeah, it's a dramatic decision by this judge, if you read through it. He's citing to literature and George Washington, to Ben Franklin. Here's what really is astonishing to me. This is a conservative ideology that clearly comes through in this decision. It's a conservative political ideology. Right? We saw some of the quotes questioning vaccines, questioning masks; conservative talking points.
But the ruling itself is the opposite of judicial conservativism. This is one of the most aggressive, far-reaching rulings you'll ever see. What this judge is purporting to do is to micro-manage, really, the day-to-day interactions between, essentially, the entire executive branch, all these agencies that are listed as defendants, and the leading social media companies.
And in the actual temporary injunction, the judge basically says, You're not allowed, administration, to talk to the social media companies about any protected free speech except for cybersecurity threats, national security threats, criminal threats.
But where's the line? Who's going to police this? This is a judge trying to micro-manage the day-to-day regular activities of the entire executive branch. I don't know that it's actually policeable by the judge. But it's really an astonishing -- I don't mean this necessarily as a criticism. This is a very activist judicial opinion.
MATTINGLY: Sarah, you know, I think Elie gets to the point that I've been trying to figure out throughout the course of the last 24 hours. We were texting about this yesterday, in terms of how significant it is.
If you look behind the scenes, communication between the federal government and tech companies is something that has long existed. You can go back to the Stone (ph) leaks, and a lot of people learned a lot during that.
SARA FISCHER: Yes.
MATTINGLY: Obviously, during some of the portions of this lawsuit, you saw how the Biden administration was dealing with this, but also the Trump administration beforehand.
And I think that's the question. When you talk to tech execs, that line that Errol was pointing out, how do you define cybersecurity, national security, the interactions that the federal government on the law enforcement side has with these companies; very, very close-knit relationships, which have also been criticized at points by both parties. What do they do here?
FISCHER: They're incredibly frustrated, Phil. I remember talking to some executives many months ago when the new Congress came in, and they pledged to have hearings to probe this level of coordination. And they feel as though this is just a political attack. There's no real proof to suggest that the government is sort of illegally trying to get in there and manipulate the content that people are seeing on their platforms.
They're frustrated, because after 2016 and there was, you know, allegations of election meddling with Russia, et cetera, there was a lot of pressure on them to coordinate more with the government. And now they're saying, OK, you want us to coordinate less?
But in terms of defining that line, there are few key issues where we know that constant communication between the federal government and these tech platforms is very helpful. Instances (ph) like child pornography, terrorism, those are the types of things that we universally understand that that coordination can be very helpful.
I think where we're trying to run into a new sort of test limit here is when it comes to things like policing conversations around vaccines. Those are things that, you know, the government would suggest or argue are a public safety initiative, something that we need to have controlled conversation over in order to ensure that the public is healthy.
But of course, there's the political argument that maybe not be -- isn't the case and that they shouldn't intervene in those types of conversations. I think that's where this can start to get political. But if you're asking my opinion, I think this whole thing is kind of a racket. You know, it suggests to me that there is a far more serious allegation of government intervention here than there actually is proof of one existing.
HARLOW: Well, an appeal is all but a certainty, but as Elie was reminding me, it's going to go to the Fifth Circuit. And then maybe to the Supreme Court and maybe expedited through -- through their shadow (ph) docket.
What's interesting to me, Errol, another interesting thing to me. It's all fascinating to me. This is a different approach. Instead of going after the tech companies, like we often see when those CEOs are on Capitol Hill, lawmakers -- often Republican lawmakers go after them, accuse them of censorship, this doesn't go after the tech companies. This goes around them and to the federal government's approach here.
ERROL LOUIS: Yes, it's an interesting strategy. The tech companies have a lot to answer for. You know, as I was reading through the opinion, I was reminded of the case in 2017, I think it was. Twelve-year-old girl livestreams her own suicide. Right? And it took Facebook two weeks before they even took it down.
If the federal government can't pick up the phone and call those companies and say, What the hell is going on here, or take this content down, we're all in a lot of trouble. And so the case itself, I think it's clearly grandstanding. Not only do the facts not support this deep state conspiracy theory, but you know, to release it on July 4th and to, you know, sort of load in all of the flowery language and sort of, you know, quote literature, the judge wants to be on the national stage. Congratulations, you're there.
But -- but when it comes to -- to actually talking to the companies, our government has done far too little. We have almost no regulation of these companies. And that is why and where the government, I think, does need to step up.
HARLOW: Final thought?
MATTINGLY: I think on the other side of what Errol is saying, I think what always strikes me is, if it's an administration that you don't think is responsible or that you don't think has the best interests of the entire country in mind, and they're having those communications, would you feel the same way? And I think this is the balance. We go back and forth on this to some degree. Can -- real quick, you made a point about the Fifth Circuit, Supreme Court.
HARLOW: Oh, yeah.
MATTINGLY: Why?
HARLOW: Well, just because it's more -- it's viewed as maybe more likely to uphold this judge's ruling.
HONIG: The appeal in this case will go to the Fifth Circuit, which would cover the federal district of Louisiana known as -- of the 13 federal circuits we have, the Fifth Circuit is known as the most conservative. But like I said, there's nothing judicially conservative about this ruling. So interesting -- it will be interesting to see where they come out.
HARLOW: Okay. Thank you, guys, stick around.
MATTINGLY: Thanks, guys.
