Phil Mattingly, CNN's chief White House correspondent, believes news outlets should surrender whenever the government demands that ...
Phil Mattingly, CNN's chief White House correspondent, believes news outlets should surrender whenever the government demands that they censor certain subjects.
Mattingly made this brazen suggestion on the Wednesday, July 5, broadcast of "CNN This Morning," where he was serving as a guest co-host with main presenter Poppy Harlow.
He said this after admitting that "more often than not," he gave in to demands for censorship by the administration of President Joe Biden. According to Mattingly, censorship "makes sense" and is "probably what we should do on public health grounds."
"[The] Biden administration would regularly reach out to Twitter and Facebook and other companies in kind of the early stages of their [Wuhan coronavirus] COVID response and say, 'This person is spreading lies about vaccines,' 'This account is spreading misinformation that is inhibiting – not just our efforts, the administration's efforts to address COVID, but also public health, do something about it,'" said Mattingly.
"And often, I think more often than not, the companies would respond and say okay," he continued. "And there are emails that came out during the course of this case that was something that I think – when it was explained to me at the time – I thought, alright, that makes sense, that's probably what we should do on public health grounds."
Biden admin officials barred from asking social media companies to censor content
Mattingly and Harlow were discussing Biden's censorship of so-called COVID-19 misinformation right after a federal judge ruled that a slew of Biden administration officials are hereby prohibited from attempting to contact social media companies about moderating content posted online that is protected by the First Amendment.
In his 155-page memorandum ruling, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana Terry A. Doughty wrote that he believes federal government officials have targeted and suppressed "millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens."
"The Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition," wrote Doughty, referring to people who were opposed to COVID-19 vaccinations, mask mandates and lockdowns.
Doughty's ruling also referred to government efforts to contact social media companies to censor people opposed to the policies of Biden and his administration, statements regarding the Hunter Biden laptop story and opposition to the validity of the 2020 presidential election.
"All were suppressed. It is quite telling that each example or category of suppressed speech was conservative in nature," warned Doughty. "This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech. American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about significant issues affecting the country."
Doughty's temporary injunction specifically prohibits certain administration individuals as well as employees working for the agencies these officials control from contacting, working with or asking social media companies about content protected by the First Amendment.
Some of the individuals named include Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly and Federal Bureau of Investigation Foreign Influence Task Force Chief Laura Dehmlow.
Doughty's sweeping ruling prevents the government from attempting to influence social media platforms to censor COVID-19-related content and the other categories mentioned above. However, the judge noted that there are several exceptions to this ban on content censorship, including:
- Posts about criminal activity or criminal conspiracies
- National security threats
- Threats to election security
- Permissible public government speech promoting government policies or views on matters of public concern
- Public safety threats
- Efforts to detect, prevent or mitigate malicious cyber activity
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