19 Comments
Jun 28Liked by Maryanne Demasi, PhD

An atrocious decision, but not unexpected. Justices Roberts, Barrett, and Kavanaugh clearly have been co-opted by the Left.

In addition to the blatant First Amendment violations, they dodged the crucial question: Who gets to define the truth, and therefore what constitutes misinformation?

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Jun 28·edited Jun 28Author

Yeah, agree…in March I thought there was a chance that the Justices were just talking through their thoughts out loud and just testing the waters…but many had reservations from the start.

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Yes who and with covid as truth changes and evolves the censorship clearly disadvantages many. Example covid is not airborne - strike all articles and mentions on SM that it is. Then the challenged 60yr basis of particle size assumptions and suddenly clean air masks etc no longer poo poo’d

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Jun 28Liked by Maryanne Demasi, PhD

Great article Marianne! 👌

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Thanks Gazza 👍

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Jun 28Liked by Maryanne Demasi, PhD

You are very welcome Maryanne. I’ve always liked your work. Particularly, when you outed statins. It’s story is everywhere now, though they’re just catching up to you!

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Jun 29Liked by Maryanne Demasi, PhD

Thanks for the explainer Maryanne. Just goes to show how corrupted the judiciary now are. The standing issue is clearly incorrect because anybody that is adversely impacted by the impact of another person must have standing by definition. An injury merely needs to be an adverse outcome just like someone who bought a faulty product isn't physically injured but has standing in view of legal "injury". Absent this fundamental principle, the government (via Bevins clause) can do what they want, which of course is what they think anyway.

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Indeed. The dissenting Justices (Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch) agree with you, even the lower courts agree. What madness this is.

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Jun 29Liked by Maryanne Demasi, PhD

Thank you so much for that considered and well written analysis. I tried to read the American reactions but they just seemed hysterical and incoherent.

It is a set back but after yesterday anything can happen.

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Thanks Jillian. Yes, a lot of initial emotional reactions, but not all is lost for the plaintiffs.

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Jun 29Liked by Maryanne Demasi, PhD

I was waiting for your analysis.

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❤️

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Jun 28Liked by Maryanne Demasi, PhD

🙏 I wonder if our new esafety commissioner will use a similar definition of standing when enacting her laws?

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Saw a pathetic article in New Daily by Madonna King

https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/opinion/2024/06/27/madonna-king-elon-musk-social-media?

Where she refers to eSafety dropping the church video case because her family was threatened

More spreading misinfo in a paper I usually find ok

eSafety lost the case because she wanted to make global laws in Australia and politicians STILL have eyes tight shut.

Also eSafety has a clear conflict of interest as a prev employee of old Twitter

The TND quote

“….Musk also excels at pushing the envelope, most recently at being a tech bully who refused to withdraw graphic footage from X (his social media platform, not his child) of a church stabbing in Sydney.

Used to winning, he took home the trophy there too, but only after Australia’s e-Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant and her family suffered a series of death threats and stopped fighting.

Inman Grant said her withdrawal was ‘strategic’, and she was in court with X Corp in five other cases. That might be a record Musk is chasing too…..”

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Jun 29Liked by Maryanne Demasi, PhD

Maybe I don't understand enough about laws and the case, but it seems that it is perfectly fine to spy, censor and coerce uncomfortable people if there is no proof of "harm". They could justify putting legcuffs on people by the same "show me the harms" logic. This is quite dystopic. Furthermore, I can´t even imagine the suffering Kulldorf, Bhatthacharya, Kheriaty, and others must have been enduring on a personal level.

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Jun 29·edited Jun 29Author

Yep, the problem is two-fold. Some Justices took the view that the government wasn't really "forcing" the social media companies to censor content, it was merely suggesting Big Tech adheres to its own misinformation policies by giving "helpful" direction and encouragement (which is absurd). Further, the plaintiffs you mention didn't have the complete chain of emails between Twitter and the government demanding their content be deleted/deprioritised - something they call "traceability" (which is also absurd) - it was censorship on a massive scale and only certain people like the "Disinformation Dozen" were named specifically in correspondence. Jay Bhattacharya mentioned that perhaps if they had sought financial damages (which the plaintiffs did NOT want to do) it may have been a more effective way of establishing harm. Go Figure!!

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Jun 28Liked by Maryanne Demasi, PhD

As Alex Berenson said in a recent Substack post, the ruling may be beneficial for his case, so all is not lost.

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If the evidence presented “named names” as it did for Alex and RFK Jr, there’s probably not an issue with legal standing.

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Jun 30Liked by Maryanne Demasi, PhD

Wow TNI (Trusted News Initiative) on steroids - it really exists and controls our news

# 2020 presidential election,

# covid-19,

and

# other topics.

Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter where he found 9 FBI agents working in “Trust and Safety” sacked the whole dept in its many locations around the world

… and that was replicated by FBI agents in META & GOOGLE.

I thought covid affected everyone and wonder how SCOTUS justified no standing!!

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