The Free Speech Grift Goes to Congress

Matt Taibbi is focused on the big First Amendment issues (Hunter Biden's laptop)

Matt Taibbi at the House Foreign Affairs Committee

Last Tuesday, the Republican-controlled House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on the nation's most pressing First Amendment violation: the Trump Administration’s targeting, detainment, and deportation of dissident voices. In a strong rebuke to President Trump, the committee and its witnesses stood firm for speech rights, calling for the immediate release of political prisoners Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk, who were — wait, I’m sorry. I got that wrong. The Committee focused on whether or not Twitter deplatformed links to a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop five years ago.

Despite calling the hearing, the Republican members and their star witnesses, Racket News’

Matt Taibbi

and The Federalist’s Benjamin Weingarten, didn’t really make a point. They didn’t call for any policy changes to protect Americans’ speech rights, and the Biden-era program Taibbi warned of, the Global Engagement Center (GEC), shuttered five months ago.¹ So, what was the purpose of all this? Congressman Bill Huizenga’s opening remarks provide a taste.

“Freedom of speech is a God-given right enshrined in the First Amendment of our nation's Constitution. It is a right that President Trump and his administration are committed to zealously protecting.”

Lol. Okay. I’ll bite.

The hearing, entitled “Censorship-Industrial Complex: The Need for First Amendment Safeguards at the State Department,” was a partisan attempt to divert media attention off the Republican administrations’ suppression of pro-Palestine critics and disregard for civil liberties. The Republicans (and their witnesses) played the fan-favorite hits that have galvanized the rightist free speech movement for a decade. You know the ones: The Biden Administration “pressured” social media companies to suppress conservative voices; Twitter executives delinked The New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020; and we even got one GOP congressman quoting Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. You can watch the entire dog and pony show here. But to be honest, I wouldn’t waste your time.

Years ago, when Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, and Bari Weiss began claiming liberals were using the government to censor online speech, I heard them out. Growing up during the War on Terror, the cases of Eric Snowden, Chelsea Manning, and Julian Assange remain in the front of my mind. It’s clear the American government doesn’t respect the First Amendment, so it’s not outlandish to think Joe Biden was chilling critical speech. I read the “Twitter Files,” listened to the trio’s appearances on the Joe Rogan Experience, and investigated their claims Democrats were suppressing online accounts that contradicted the liberal position on COVID, trans people, immigration, and other political issues. But the more I heard, the more far-fetched their claims became, and the partisan agenda pushed by these Free Speech Warriors became impossible to ignore.

If you listen to Matt Taibbi and his ilk, you’ll notice they rarely claim something is a “First Amendment violation.” Instead, they use the more nebulous term “free speech,” an unspecific categorization that makes their audiences feel like their rights have been violated. Fired from your job for using a slur? That’s a free speech violation. None of your grandchildren liked your Facebook post calling Trump the Messiah? You poor thing. How could they violate your free speech like that?

This is why the Free Speech Warriors focus on social media companies. Years ago, when Jack Dorsey ran Twitter and Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t the Trump-loving muscular alpha male he is today, espousing reactionary beliefs would get you banned from most social media sites — as it should. Saying “immigrants are subhuman” or “transpeople should be eliminated” will get you kicked out of a dinner party, so it is no surprise companies didn’t want these sentiments appearing under advertisements. This was a problem for Republicans, as it’s challenging to court votes when your core political platforms are unwelcome in polite society. So, the conservative movement decided to morph the world to their worldview, which was much easier than going to therapy and discovering they were assholes.

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With imagined grievances and billionaire funders driving them forward, conservatives launched a propaganda campaign claiming anything less than the full-throated promotion of their beliefs was “censorship.” Ben Shapiro made a career whining that woke universities and social media suppressed him. In reality, his media company, The Daily Wire, is one of the most-shared links on Facebook. Shapiro’s anti-trans ads generated over $5.7 million in revenue for Meta between 2018 and 2023, the height of the alleged anti-conservative censorship regime.² Under the guise of “protecting free speech”, Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022 with funding from the Saudis and Qatars. I’m too busy writing this to google it, but I’m sure those two nations have long-standing traditions of respecting open debate and free thought. Musk quickly transformed the platform into a launch pad for his preferred presidential candidates: first Ron DeSantis, then Donald Trump. Venture capitalist David Sacks connected Matt Taibbi and Elon Musk to write “The Twitter Files,” which claimed the previous owners censored consorted with the Biden administration to censor right-wing and anti-vax accounts.³ That same year, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) changed its name to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression as part of its move to join the broader culture war. FIRE is funded by ultra-conservative groups such as Charles Koch and the Bradley Foundation, so you can imagine which types of speech they want to uplift and which they want to suppress.⁴

Muhammad al-Ghamdi was sentenced to death for criticizing the Saudi government on Twitter. I’m sure Elon Musk will speak up for him any day now…

As we now know, the Free Speech Crusade bore fruit for the Republican Party. Social media companies bowed and allowed more racist — sorry — “racially conservative” posts, while Neo-Nazi accounts have flourished since Elon Musk let them back on Twitter.⁵ All the while, Republicans were placated by the media, which presented their claims about “free speech” at face value and never examined the integrity or funding that birthed this new-found cause. (To be fair, that would’ve required actual journalism, and legacy media has its limits.) The crusade culminated with the second election of Donald Trump, who claimed to be the “free speech candidate,” despite wanting to shoot Black Lives Matter protestors during his first administration.⁶

Who is this man, Donald Trump? Has he respected the First Amendment in the past? Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell.

While free speech has underlined a presidential campaign and birthed a whole media echo chamber, I’ve yet to hear any of the Free Speech Warriors — pundits or organizations — define “free speech.” (I contacted FIRE for their definition, but they didn’t respond.) Given the exorbitant resources dedicated to this supposed societal crisis, the lack of a provided definition leads me to believe vagueness is the point. And that’s the irony of this entire astroturfed cottage industry. Even if everything Matt Taibbi claimed about GEK in his congressional testimony is true , none of it actually violates the First Amendment. While the text of the iconic protection reads, “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech,” it’s commonly and rightfully interpreted as a limitation on any government body from punishing or blocking speech it dislikes. It’s a damn good amendment, and I’m happy it exists. As there is no First Amendment violation for Taibbi to point to, he skirts around the edges, implying there was an offense in hopes his right-leaning subscribers will jump to the conclusion without him having to say it. This tactic was on full display during the hearing, where Taibbi said:

“The idea behind GEC was to propagandize American citizens and encourage acceptance of official policy the way we’ve always done to foreign populations. It's a flagrant violation of First Amendment ideals and should be eradicated from the government completely.”

Notice how Taibbi didn’t say GEC violated the First Amendment. Instead, he says it violates First Amendment “ideals.” What are “First Amendment ideals”? I know what the First Amendment is: the government can’t tell me what I can or cannot say. I have no clue what the “ideals” are. It’s telling Taibbi doesn’t accuse the government of violating that premise but instead conjures an imaginary set of “free speech vibes” and then accuses the government of violating those. It’s the clear sign of a non-serious actor, affording him the notoriety and income of a right-wing influencer while leaving himself the space to maintain he’s a “neutral journalist.”

Lol

It’s this ever-shifting concept of “ideals” and “free speech” that the Free Speech Warriors rely on. Taibbi, Greenwald, and Weiss employ them to conjure an image for their audiences that any attempt by anyone — social media companies, neighbors, etc. — to ignore or criticize what they say is a supposed infringement of their protected speech rights. It is not. Americans have the right to speak without fear of state reprisal. Someone hanging up on you during a tirade about woke cartoons is both legal and justified.

We saw the absurdity of this vagueness displayed recently by the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. Last year Taibbi published an article with Gabbard claiming Biden added her to the terrorist watch list to punish her for supporting Trump. Tulsi Gabbard is a former officer in the Army’s Psychological Warfare Unit with top-secret clearance, so there’s a better chance Iran’s Supreme Leader being invited to Netanyahu’s birthday than there is of Tulsi Gabbard being flagged at the airport.

During a hearing about Signalgate, Congressman Jim Himes asked Gabbard why she was retweeting an account affiliated with Russian state media. Her answer probably won’t surprise you.

“I maintain my First Amendment rights to express my personal views on different issues.”

This is a shockingly stupid answer. Gabbard wasn’t facing a First Amendment question. The American government wasn’t telling her she couldn’t tweet as she wanted. A congressman simply asked her to justify retweeting a fascist-funded influencer. Her invocation of free speech is just a pathetic excuse to avoid answering for the shitty things she says and does. That’s all this rightist Free Speech Crusade ever was and all it ever will be. An excuse from people with terrible politics as an escape justified criticism or repercussions for their beliefs. Tulsi’s excuse really highlights the Free Speech Warriors absurdity. Taibbi claims Biden government officials telling Americans what to think about COVID on social media violates First Amendment Ideals, but government official Tulsi Gabbard telling Americans what to think about Russia is protected by the First Amendment. Almost like they have no principles whatsoever!

We know this project isn’t interested in protecting First Amendment rights, because when the state punishes speech, the Free Speech Warriors are either silent or supportive. After Trump banned the Associated Press from White House briefings for not saying “The Gulf of America,” Taibbi laughed it off as Trump “trolling.” As a judge ruled earlier this week, that was a clear violation of the First Amendment. You know, the thing Matt Taibbi claims to obsess about.

Hilarious!

No where has the disregard for speech rights been more evident than on issues pertaining to Palestine. While writing about the abduction of Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts student arrested in Somerville, MA, for writing a pro-Palestine op-ed in the school newspaper,⁷ Matt Taibbi bends over backward to excuse the Trump administration. He lends credence to Marco Rubio’s pathetic justification for snatching a legal resident off the street, claiming that the government’s proof-less claim is worth entertaining.

The paper quoted Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said, “We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree. Not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses.” The Times did not mention Rubio specifically added she’d been detained “not just because you want to write op-eds,” but over vandalism and “that sort of activity.” Even the ACLU’s habeas motion on her behalf ignored the Rubio quote and said, “Her arrest and detention appear to be based solely on her co-authorship of an op-ed.” Lawyers asserted Rubio “confirmed” she was arrested “solely because of her actual or perceived First Amendment activity.”

Two days later he was at the “Censorship Industrial Complex” hearing, helping the same administration shift the news cycle critical news by claiming Biden violated “First Amendment ideals.” Funny how masked government thugs dragging a woman into an unmarked van doesn’t violate those “ideals.”

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This has become the go-to tactic for pro-Trump pundits trying to preserve an image of seriousness. When a Democrat president answers Meta’s request for guidelines on COVID, Taibbi will fly to Washington and testify for Republicans that it’s the most significant First Amendment violation in our lifetime. But when Trump is ordering specific individuals to be stripped of due process for criticizing sweet and precious Israel, he gives the administration the benefit of the doubt, which they absolutely do not deserve. In covering the abduction of Mahmoud Khalil, another Palestinian organizer abducted by the government, Taibbi chose not to condemn the detention, instead publishing a timeline of the events that included Trump’s justifications of “combatting antisemitism.”

This is exactly what you’d write if you wanted to justify political abductions.

What angers me about this faux free-speech campaign is that the government does infringe on our constitutional rights, especially those protected by the First Amendment. Last year, America police rioted on campuses from Texas to New York, beating and arresting peaceful anti-genocide protestors. Over thirty-seven states bar employees or federal contractors from boycotting Israel. These are egregious and pressing First Amendment violations. Yet the Free Speech Warriors* are suspiciously less-militant when the government attacks leftists and or anti-war protestors.

(*Glenn Greenwald does condemn attacks on Palestinian activists.)

Purple states have passed anti-BDS laws that violated the First Amendment.

There’s also a very important conversation society needs to have about social media. Should the means of communication be controlled by a few people? I think everyone can agree that’s not conducive to a healthy society. Weiss and Taibbi have written ad nauseam about online censorship, yet their arguments amount to little more than complaining. “Twitter did X.” “Facebook said Y.” If Matt Taibbi shares my concern that the public should have more control over social media, he has three options:

1. Call to nationalize social media so all content is protected by the First Amendment,

2. Advocate for European-style regulation of the program that determines content through democratic elections, or

3. Shut The Fuck Up.

Thanks to the same political right now complaining about alleged censorship, America is a capitalist country. Because the state considers companies personal property, the owners of Twitter, Meta, and YouTube get to decided which messages are allowed and which are not. That’s why this entire crusade, from congressional hearings to Substack articles, is nothing more than complaining. Conservatives are mad the capitalist system they praise didn’t let them discuss the skull measurements of minorities because it was bad for Facebook’s business. So they whined and cried, while people like Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss held a megaphone for their tantrum. For a hefty fee, of course.

Unlike Bari Weiss, I don’t believe Taibbi is actually a conservative. Instead, I think he got mad at MSNBC for uninviting him for his critiques of Russiagate (which I share), and ran to the right, which stroked his ego and filled his bank account. He climbed out on a branch claiming the Democrats were a bigger threat to speech than Donald Trump, then out onto an even smaller twig for Elon Musk. As Trump has used the Bill of Rights for toilet paper and the Twitter Files were exposed as Musk’s public relations ploy, he felt the whole trunk fall away beneath him. With an ego larger than the Salvadoran prison legal residents are being shipped to for having tattoos (which is a First Amendment right), Matt Taibbi can’t bring himself to admit he was wrong. So he digs his grave deeper and deeper, until he’s supporting an administration that, among other things, is policing social media and punishing speech it doesn’t like.

As Taibbi has a large following, I’m sure many people reading this have or do read his work. That’s perfectly understandable, as you experience the American reality in which the speech of common people is suppressed and punished. Naturally, you followed those that claimed to be addressing the issue. I did too, for a while. But any critique of censorship in America that doesn’t include the words “capitalism” or “Israel” is inadequate. At best it’s shortsighted. And at worst, as in the case of Matt Taibbi, it’s a grift: an attempt to harness genuine concern into neutered action and undue self-promotion.

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Whew. This was a long one. I planned for this to be paid-subscriber exclusive, but felt the subject was too important to limit its reach. That said, if you enjoyed this, please consider a premium subscription. It’s cheap ($5 a month), and ensures I can keep creating this type of content.

As always, I appreciate your attention.

In Solidarity — Joe

1. https://2021-2025.state.gov/bureaus-offices/under-secretary-for-public-diplomacy-and-public-affairs/global-engagement-center/

2. https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/daily-wire-has-earned-millions-facebook-interactions-amplifying-anti-trans-content

3. https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/eoin-higgins/owned/9781645030461/

4. https://prospect.org/education/conservatives-behind-campus-free-speech-crusade/

5. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/x-twitter-elon-musk-nazi-extremist-white-nationalist-accounts-rcna145020

6. https://www.axios.com/2022/05/02/mark-esper-book-trump-protesters

7. https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj