Back in July, in the case of Missouri v. Biden, a court in Louisiana found in favor of the plaintiffs and ordered the Biden administration and several other federal agencies to cease having contact with social media platforms and coercing them to remove posts containing contrarian views about coronavirus vaccines and other matters related to the COVID pandemic. The Fifth Circuit later refined that order and decreased the number of agencies and individuals that would face those restrictions. But on Friday, by a 6-3 majority, the court issued a temporary block to the ruling and agreed to hear the case in full. This drew the ire of the three conservative justices who voted in the minority, including Samuel Alito, who said that he feared the ruling would give a “green light” to the federal government’s ability to suppress speech that was critical of the administration. (Daily Caller)

Justice Samuel Alito said Friday that the Supreme Court majority’s decision to pause a lower court injunction blocking the Biden administration from coercing social media companies to censor speech may be perceived as giving a “green light” to the government’s use of “heavy handed tactics” to suppress speech.

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear a landmark free speech case, Missouri v. Biden, that challenges the Biden administration’s communications with social media companies to censor speech. But, until the case can be heard, it also granted the Biden administration’s request to pause the lower court’s order, a decision Alito slammed in a dissent joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch as “unreasoned,” and said “allows the defendants to persist in committing the type of First Amendment violations that the lower courts identified.”

Alito was joined by Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch in opposing the decision. John Roberts has traditionally been weak on free speech issues, particularly when conservative voices are being silenced. But the surrender of Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett clearly demonstrates the extent to which progressive concerns over a “radically conservative Supreme Court” have been overblown. It’s true that this ruling doesn’t mean that the full court will eventually abolish the rulings of the lower courts, but it sends a very negative signal.

From the beginning, however, I have felt that the original lawsuit, while quite well-intentioned, was mostly pointless anyway. The administration has been engaging in this sort of de facto censorship for a while now and the fact that they are fighting it so vigorously in court indicates that they have no intention of stopping it. The willingness of a majority on the court to even entertain the idea also bodes ill for the plaintiffs.

Also, even if such an order were allowed to stand, enforcement would be virtually impossible anyway. Washington is very much defined by the cocktail party circuit and “unofficial orders” can carry as much weight as published ones. The social media companies are almost entirely dominated by leftists who endorse the administration’s policies and seek to curry favor with them. (With the possible exception of Twitter under Elon Musk.) It’s not as if they’re being forced to do something that they didn’t already approve of.

The government is full of “people who know people.” It would take almost no effort for the White House to dispatch someone to an event where they know the right “influencers” will be present. That messenger would simply have to say, ‘Have you seen some of these posts going around saying such-and-such? They’re really awful.’ The listener would then be able to quickly get on the phone to the headquarters of Facebook, Instagram, or wherever and relay the information. They could then begin the search and destroy mission to root out and eliminate the applicable posts and the accounts of those who dared to express those opinions without any White House official ever attending a meeting with the social media giants.

This is unfortunately the reality that we’re dealing with. And the outcome of Missouri v Biden is unlikely to change it.