The liberal justices were piling on the attorney for the state and the conservative justices were mostly silent. Barrett seemed to agree that government should be able to silence social media posts that disagreed with the government’s position.
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For a case that was simple and straight forward, the Court rushed into the weeds and left me very uneasy with all the diversions and ginned up side issues. The First Amendment is a natural right protected by the Constitution and like all other rights is not to be abided except in the rarest of circumstances. Yet, the Court seemed overly sympathetic to the government continuing to collude with private entities to abridge the First Amendment right versus the citizens right to unfettered free speech. I don’t know what to make of it all, but the arguments left me nervous and feeling like few on the Court really understand the issue and the seriousness of the matter. Let’s hope they school themselves on past government censorship atrocities before they issue their opinion.
“For a case that was simple and straight forward, the Court rushed into the weeds and left me very uneasy with all the diversions and ginned up side issues. “
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I agree. The hypotheticals especially went down rabbit holes that had no bearing on the case before them.
Justice Sotomayor and Jackson were bad, but so was Barrett, Kagan and Gorsuch. Even Roberts wasn’t much better although he made some good points for the Plaintiffs. It worries me that the conservative justices were so silent as the liberal justices piled on, but that might be a good thing in that they heard nothing that would convinced them of the state’s position and felt no need to ask questions.