“The First Amendment Has Got Out of Control”

In the Supreme Court ruling, the New York Times said “the quiet part out loud,” attacking “*your* free speech.”

Leftist bureaucracy has been easily summed up as rules for you but not me, and on Tuesday, The Gray Lady became a tad more somber with an editorial lamenting the Bill of Rights’ apex. Written by Columbia University law professor Tim Wu, who previously served as special assistant to President Joe Biden at the National Economic Council, the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to send back two NetChoice cases prompted the headline: “The First Amendment Has Spun Out of Control.”

“The judiciary needs to realize that the First Amendment is getting out of hand,” Wu argued after suggesting that “Monday’s Supreme Court decision in the two NetChoice cases makes the problem much worse,” with the First Amendment now supposedly “primarily protecting corporate interests.”

“Although the Supreme Court sent both cases back to lower courts for further fact-finding, the court nonetheless went out of its way to find that the millions of algorithmic decisions made every day by social media platforms are protected by the First Amendment,” he wrote. “It did so by blithely assuming that those algorithmic decisions are equivalent to expressive decisions made by human editors in newspapers.”

In response to the editorial, self-described “absolute free speech advocate” Elon Musk took to his social media platform X and stated, “The New York Times is attacking *your* free speech!”

Echoing the tech entrepreneur’s claim that the newspaper wanted to be treated differently from the rest of society, Utah Sen. Mike Lee (R) added, “The New York Times certainly doesn’t want to repeal or narrow the First Amendment — unless it’s given special privileges that others don’t have. I suspect that’s what’s going on.”

Certainly The New York Times does not want to repeal or narrow the First Amendment — unless it is granted special privileges that others do not have.

I suspect that’s what it’s all about. https://t.co/4Ab3DdYiNJ

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) July 2, 2024

In its decision Monday, which was overshadowed by a 6-3 ruling on former President Donald Trump’s immunity, the Supreme Court sent challenges to the Florida and Texas laws back to lower courts and wrote: “Today, we reverse both decisions on grounds unrelated to the First Amendment merits because neither Court of Appeals properly considered the nature of NetChoice’s claim. The courts have largely addressed what the parties have focused on. And the parties have largely argued these cases as if the rights applied only to channels offered by the largest and most exemplary social media platforms — as if, say, each case were a complaint brought by Facebook protesting its loss of control over the content of its news feed.”

Wu tried to justify the left’s desire to be arbiters of free speech by appealing to the monarchical rule of all things, adding, “By assuming that free speech protections apply to a tech company’s ‘curation’ of content, even if that curation does not involve human judgment, the Supreme Court undermines the government’s ability to regulate so-called public carriers like railroads and airlines—a traditional function of the state since the Middle Ages.”

“What is wrong with these people?” asked Stanford School of Medicine professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. “Americans should never allow anyone who thinks like this near the levers of power. They are a threat to the basic human rights of all of us.”

His response was in response to a tweet by Committee to Unleash Prosperity Chairman Phil Kerpen, who wrote: “Former Biden White House antitrust guru Tim Wu, who coined the term ‘net neutrality,’ addressed the New York Times with the timeless headline ‘say loudly what is quiet.’”

What is wrong with these people? The American people should never allow anyone who thinks like this near the levers of power. They are a threat to basic human rights.

— Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) July 2, 2024

America protects more free speech than any other country.

This is because of the First Amendment.

This is because of our culture of free speech.

I prefer America’s “excessive” free speech behavior to the unchecked censorship in other countries.

These are excesses of freedom. photo:twitter.com/IhygdV1YQb

— Nico Perrino (@NicoPerrino) July 2, 2024

The New York Times has lost control.

They are the real enemies of our country and support people who truly believe in socialism and communism as a viable political ideology.

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) July 2, 2024

The First Amendment has been a thorn in the side of progressives since 1789.

— Eric M (@EricCMeadows) July 2, 2024

Rules for you, not me!

— Amber (@FeralFeline9) July 2, 2024

Staff Writer

Born in Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied cultural anthropology and geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently lives in Texas with his wife and dog, and when he is not researching current events and their impact, he can be found spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.

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