These abrogations of civil norms are for the greater good

From The surgeon general calls on Big Tech to turn over Covid-19 misinformation data by Davey Alba.  The subheading is "Dr. Vivek Murthy also demanded information from the platforms about the major sources of Covid-19 misinformation. Companies have until May 2 to submit the data."

Yet another example of this administration's instincts towards totalitarianism and authoritarianism.  It is almost certain that the Surgeon General does not have the authority to compel such divulgence of information by the tech companies but too often big corporations are only too willing too breach civil norms in order to curry favor with their regulators, leaving citizens and their civil rights prey too abuse.  

From the article.

President Biden’s surgeon general on Thursday formally requested that the major tech platforms submit information about the scale of Covid-19 misinformation on social networks, search engines, crowdsourced platforms, e-commerce platforms and instant messaging systems.

A request for information from the surgeon general’s office demanded that tech platforms send data and analysis on the prevalence of Covid-19 misinformation on their sites, starting with common examples of vaccine misinformation documented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The notice asks the companies to submit “exactly how many users saw or may have been exposed to instances of Covid-19 misinformation,” as well as aggregate data on demographics that may have been disproportionately exposed to or affected by the misinformation.

The surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, also demanded information from the platforms about the major sources of Covid-19 misinformation, including those that engaged in the sale of unproven Covid-19 products, services and treatments.

No such totalitarian demand is complete without the fig leaf claim that it is for the nation's greater good.

“Technology companies now have the opportunity to be open and transparent with the American people about the misinformation on their platforms,” Dr. Murthy said in an emailed statement. He added: “This is about protecting the nation’s health.”

This creates an interesting epistemic and philosophical problem though.  The CDC, the government, and the administration have themselves been the primary source of misinformation over the two-year course of the pandemic.  They have been reliably wrong about the course and seasonality of the pandemic waves.  They were dramatically wrong in their anticipation of vaccine effectiveness over time, they were wrong in not taking into account acquired natural immunity, they were wrong about mask efficacy, they were wrong about lock-down efficacy, and they were negligent and frequently wrong about treatment protocols.  They have been almost deliberately bad in their data capture and very misleading about real risk exposure by age and health conditions and have turned a blind eye to modest but real dangers associated with the experimental vaccines.  They have sought to hide the discussions, considerations and measured outcomes of the vaccine trials and Emergency Use Authorization.

It would be virtually impossible to arrive at even a rough consensus of what constitutes "misleading information" much less a definition which distinguished between the errors in the government's communications versus errors in citizen's communications.  And impossible to distinguish between the "misleading information" about which the Surgeon General is concerned and the free speech to which all citizens are by birthright entitled.  

The Surgeon General is seeking information that can readily be used to punish citizens for exercising their Constitutional rights as was done by the Canadian government with its citizens under their monthlong Emergencies Authorization.  

It is astonishing and revolting that this administration is so open and strident in its efforts to suppress the Constitutional rights of Americans.