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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 18, 2024

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The way Alito framed it, I almost wondered if he was trying to goad the government into claiming that it actually has the same right to bully and coerce news outlets.

They did get into the difference between platforms a bit later:

MR. AGUIÑAGA: Yeah, and I would say, in the mine-run case that you're describing to me, it's the government going after the speaker itself and trying to get them to change their speech. What's so pernicious here is that you don't see any of these facts in this record unless we get discovery, which is when -- when Rob Flaherty, who's Deputy Assistant to the President, sends an email to Facebook or to Twitter and complains that they're not doing enough to censor what they view as vaccine hesitancy speech. America never sees that. And the third party, people like Jill Hines and -- and Jim Hoft, whose speech wishes to express the kinds of viewpoints that the White House is targeting, they never know that that's happening behind the scenes. And I think it makes a difference, Justice Kagan, that you have an intermediary here who really has no incentive to itself defend Jim Hoft's speech or to defend Jill Hines's speech. In The New York Times's hypothetical, you have a story, a publication that itself is familiar with those kinds of --

JUSTICE KAVANAUGH: Well, what about op-eds?

JUSTICE KAGAN: I mean --

JUSTICE BARRETT: Don't you think --

JUSTICE KAVANAUGH: What about op-eds?

MR. AGUIÑAGA: Your Honor, with op-eds, you know, if it's third-party speech that -- that has that issue --

JUSTICE KAVANAUGH: That happens too, right?

MR. AGUIÑAGA: And I guess there are a number of ways I would think about that, Your Honor. One is, if the newspaper declines to run an op-ed because the government asked, that op-ed author can go to any number of other publications and it has an outlet. It's not the same here because, if I'm on Twitter and I wish to express a viewpoint that the government wishes to censor and Twitter bows to that pressure, then --

JUSTICE KAGAN: But if one --

MR. AGUIÑAGA: -- I lose my account.

I almost wondered if he was trying to goad the government into claiming that it actually has the same right to bully and coerce news outlets.

It would be in character, right? I guess it was too much to hope that we'd get another win that easily, though.

"You can't handle the truth!

Son, we live in a world that has mass media, and those media have to be guarded by men with banhammers. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Justice Alito? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for the publisher, and you curse the Congress. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know -- that chilling effects, while tragic, probably saved elections; and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves elections.

We use words like "fact-checking," "regulation," "trust." We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line."

"Would you order the book ban?"

"I do the job..."

"Would you order the book ban!!?"

"YOU'RE GODDAMN RIGHT I WOULD!"