There are two things right and left agree upon. The first is that censorship of the internet is critical to our survival. The second is that Judge Terry Doughty’s injunction in Missouri v. Biden is over and under inclusive, or to put in lay terms, isn’t very well framed. So there’s consensus? Not really, since other than agreement about these two things, they come out on opposite sides of the issues.

That much is true by definition. Doughty’s injunction generally prohibits various agencies and officials from “meeting with social-media companies,” “specifically flagging content or posts,” or otherwise “urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing” the “removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.” The injunction also bars the defendants from “threatening, pressuring, or coercing social-media companies” toward that end and from “urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing” them to “change their guidelines for removing, deleting, suppressing, or reducing content containing protected free speech.”

As many have pointed out, being “urged” by the government is nothing like being urged by one of the vast array of do-gooder non-governmental organizations crying the sky is falling unless some radical change happens immediately if not sooner. As my pal Bennett put it, “nice internet you got there” is the mobster’s means of urging, and the government is worse.

But how, the argument goes, can we stop the misinformation, the disinformation, if social media only complies when the government asks it nicely upon threat to repeal Section 230? People will DIE!!!

On Monday, Judge Doughty refused a stay on his injunction, putting it into immediate effect. His perplexing line-drawing seems to make more sense when you consider how closely it tracks the specific facts in this case — for instance, episodes in which the government communicated with social media platforms about posts concerning the efficacy of ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine in treating Covid-19 or the efficacy of masks in combating the transmission of the coronavirus. If those issues seem to overlap a bit too neatly with recent conservative preoccupations, that’s because the case is part of a wider war conservatives believe they are fighting, in which tech executives and Democratic government officials are supposedly colluding to censor conservative voices.

Not that the claims about ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine weren’t medical misinformation, and not that the government and the medical associations and trusted experts couldn’t dispute  the medical advice of randos on twitter, but if people want to spew nonsense, and others want to believe nonsense and put their lives at risk, that’s the way free speech works. Indeed, the First Amendment is a suicide pact if you want it to be. No one forces you to believe the pseudonymous idiot, but no one should be able to prevent you from being as stupid as you wanna be.

No feat of rhetoric could disguise the flagrantly political nature of the federal court ruling on July 4 that restricted the Biden administration’s communications with social media platforms — but Judge Terry A. Doughty, who wrote the opinion, did his best to cover his tracks. The 155-page opinion, which could hinder the government’s efforts to counter false and misleading online speech about issues like election interference and vaccine safety, is laced with lofty references to George Orwell and quotations from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, making it more reminiscent of a civics essay than a federal judicial opinion.

Suddenly, reference to Jefferson, Franklin and Orwell is dismissed by characterizing the opinion as “laced with lofty” references? Are these good words from good guys, or only when one side “laces” their argument with their “lofty” sentiment’?

And then there’s the government’s purpose at issue. Is the problem “hindering the governments efforts to counter false and misleading speech,” or is it the government deciding what is false and misleading, what is the “right” narrative and what is the “wrong” narrative. Does the government get to decide truth?

But, you sputter in reply with froth emanating from you upper bonus hole, it’s the government’s job to save us. Well, not really us, because we’re too smart to shoot horse tranquilizer, but to save those blithering idiots who refused to wear masks, get vaccinated or think it’s racist to be asked for ID before being allowed to vote. Kate Klonick distinguishes the evil use of government fiat to compel social media to do its bidding with “jawboning.”

I agree with Judge Doughty that the apparent pressure that the Biden administration placed on the platforms is questionable. But the degree to which those demands were heeded or coercive is uncertain. They seem to be classic examples of what political scientists call jawboning: the government’s use of public appeals or private channels to induce change or compliance from businesses.

Jawboning is not a tool unique to any one political party and it is a dubious tactic no matter who uses it. Recent Republican administrations and government officials have used the same tactic to try to control online speech and speech by private companies. Multiple former employees of Twitter testified in Congress that officials in the Trump administration pressured the platform to remove speech that insulted or derided Mr. Trump.

If it’s “questionable” and/or “dubious.” is it still okay? Sure, a call from President Biden commanding Zuck to remove all references to ivermectin would be way over the line, but a call where Uncle Joe asks in his kindly, soft, uncle Joe-y voice that he would really appreciate it if you Mark, could help people out be eliminating deadly misinformation from Facebook would be “classic jawboining” and carry no implicit threat of “or else” just because it’s the president of the United States of America?

Nothing prevents the government from holding news conferences or issuing press releases expressing the best information it possesses, and which it believes in all sincerity to be correct. Nothing prevents the myriad NGOs from pursing their mission of public health and safety and expressing what they believe to be the correct information and disputing what they believe to be incorrect. To the extent either the government or these organizations hold the trust of the American people, they will listen and heed their advice.

Judge Doughty’s injunction may be a mess as to what it enjoins and permits, but that a federal judge stopped the government from coercing and pressuring social media to censor speech that differs from the government’s orthodoxy, he’s not wrong. It may not be truth, and may in fact be false and very dangerous, but the government doesn’t get to silence speech that counters its version of truth.