In a big week for the Supreme Court, justices heard several cases relating to the First Amendment. Arguments from one case relating to government censorship sparked viral backlash after Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson appeared to suggest government collusion with social media companies could be justified. On 'America's Newsroom' on Wednesday, Fox News contributor and constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley outlined his concern over the 'chilling' remarks from Justice Jackson.
JUSTICE JACKSON LAMBASTED FOR ‘CONCERN’ 1ST AMENDMENT COULD ‘HAMSTRING GOVERNMENT’ IN COVID CENSORSHIP HEARING JONATHAN TURLEY: There are indeed important First Amendment cases here. As someone associated with the free speech community, we're all on edge. It was chilling in the social media case to hear justices like Jackson repeatedly say, what's the problem with the government coercing speech? Why shouldn't they, when there are really troubling periods … like in the pandemic. And many of us were really sort of agape at that, because much of what the government did on censorship was wrong. Many things that they were censoring, by scientists who were fired and disciplined and barred from social media, in some cases. They were vindicated, ultimately, on things like the origin of the virus, showing that it's not just a possibility, many consider it the leading possibility. Closing of schools. They were vindicated on many of those things