It's been three years

Steve Schwartzman

Sep 13

It's been three years since I showed you a buffalo bur flower, Solanum rostratum, so here's one from Pflugerville on September 9th. The sharp spines visible in the lower portion of the picture explain the bur in the name buffalo bur. Perhaps the plant's even spinier seed capsules used to get caught in the coats of the buffalo that once roamed so much of the country.

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Federal Government Improperly "Coerced" and "Significantly Encouraged" Certain Speech Restrictions by Social Media Platforms

In yesterday's decision in Missouri v. Biden, the Fifth Circuit (Judges Edith Clement, Jennifer Elrod, and Don Willett) held that the federal government violated the First Amendment by causing social media platforms to block posts on various topics (including "the COVID-19 lab-leak theory, pandemic lockdowns, vaccine side-effects, election fraud, and the Hunter Biden laptop story").

The court acknowledged that the First Amendment doesn't bar social media platforms from acting on their own to restrict user speech, since the First Amendment applies only to the government and not to private parties (including large corporations). But the court concluded that the First Amendment may be violated "when a private party is coerced or significantly encouraged by the government to such a degree that its 'choice'—which if made by the government would be unconstitutional—'must in law be deemed to be that of the State.' This is known as the close nexus test."

So begins a September 9th article by Eugene Volokh in Reason. You're welcome to read the full article for many more details. A Wall Street Journal editorial offers another take on this.

You can also look back on a commentary I wrote in April, which began: "The First Amendment to the United States Constitution forbids the government from suppressing people's free speech. Lately, however, our government has been funding organizations to carry out the suppression that it itself isn't allowed to do." That commentary included links to related articles.