Biden’s Social-Media Censorship Harms Us All

The First Amendment protects the right to hear alternative views, not merely to express them

By Philip Hamburger. He teaches at Columbia and is CEO of the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Excerpts:

"Government officials repeatedly made public statements demanding censorship from the platforms. The announced policy was grossly overbroad. It thereby has directly tended to chill the speech of vast numbers of Americans, quite apart from the suppression that the government obtained through the platforms. Anyone with views opposed to the administration has had reason to temper what he says to avoid being deplatformed, demonetized or deboosted."

"People can’t develop their views with any sophistication unless they can consider opinions that enlarge, refine, moderate or challenge their own. So, when government demands the suppression of some speech and chills even more, it reduces the diversity, value and moderation of opinion—and thereby diminishes the opportunity for every individual to develop and express his own considered views."

"Therefore, when vast numbers of Americans are chilled in their scientific and medical speech, it dangerously injures all of us, who suffer a diminished opportunity to learn and to reconsider and refine our own views."