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So, public health officials asked social media companies to stop accounts from spamming that vaccines cause autism?

There was no law and no threat, just public and private coordination.

I have no problem with that. Sorry, this is not even close to censorship.

If a member of the government asks their friend in a social media company to quietly take down a post, they are using influence and corruption (of the company) to impose government censorship. If they ask the legal representatives of the company to make a policy decision to take down a post, there is the implied threat of regulation, and it is government coersion. Both are legally violations of the first amendment.

I think it's bad public policy for government to coerce social media companies into censoring information, however it's not clear whether that legally amounts to a First Amendment violation. There are no clear legal precedents in that area. It will be interesting to see how the courts rule on the Missouri v. Biden case.

https://ago.mo.gov/home/news/2022/05/05/missouri-louisiana-a...

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