CLAY: This is from surgeon general of the United States. They are arguing that they want Big Tech companies to actually go through the process of stopping what they are calling “covid misinformation” and disallowing conversations like, frankly, the one that you are hearing on this radio program on a day-to-day basis to be able to happen. That’s what they’re trying to do.

This is a big deal because the government itself cannot restrict what conversations are occurring because the government cannot restrict through the First Amendment. But if they use Big Tech companies to do it after they’re calling for it to happen, they’re trying to back-door their way into the same kind of system that they have in China where the government itself does the regulation. And this is a significant fact that I think many people are missing. But I want to play this. This is Vivek Murthy. He is the surgeon general. And he is saying here, tech companies need to stop covid misinformation. Listen to this clip.

REPORTER: What do you think are the best ways to push back on misinformation about covid that continues to be aggressively pushed, whether it be Joe Rogan’s podcast or all over Facebook?

MURTHY: When it comes to how we root out the misinformation in society right now and give people access to actual — accurate information, we’ve gotta do several things. Number one, we’ve gotta recognize that our technology platforms, whether particularly social media… These have an important role to play. These are the predominant places where we see misinformation spread. These platforms have still not stepped up to do the right thing — do enough I should say — to reduce the spread of misinformation.

BUCK: Clay, can we talk about a few things? First of all, that should be chilling to anyone who believes in the First Amendment, right, to have a senior government official like that that who is… ‘Cause, as we will all know, the federal government has a million ways they can pressure private companies. There’s a lot of things. So, you know, the president of the United States saying, or the surgeon in this case saying — Biden’s done it, too, though — “You better shut down these ideas I don’t like or else”?

Companies are gonna take that seriously. It’s not a free and fair market situation, ’cause they’re gonna be saying, “Well, I don’t want to get regulated. I don’t want want all of a sudden to be treated differently by the many-headed hydra out of D.C. that is the federal government.” So that’s one part of it, but this is a tell: They never say, “What is this misinformation?”

They act like there’s some effort out there to say that if you get the vaccine, you’re gonna turn into the lizard people or something — and look, I’m sure there is crazy nonsense out there that exists about vaccines. Crazy nonsense about a lot of things. You know what I mean? There’s crazy nonsense about a lot of things. But when they say “misinformation,” I want to be very clear. It’s things like, “I don’t think that the risk tolerance should be such that you get your 4-year-old a vaccine.”

They consider that to be, quote, “misinformation.” The contradiction of the official guidance is misinformation. Rejecting their policy dictates is misinformation. Otherwise, they would be saying, “Hey, people keep saying…” You know, usually when we hear about specific things, Clay, oh, it’s horse dewormer. Oh, people are eating fish tank cleaner ’cause they think it’s hydroxychloroquine.

It turns out to be a lie, right? Turns out not even to be true, and everyone says, “No one’s actually taking horse dewormer. What are you talking about?” If there was real misinformation out there, they would say what it is, you would think. But really their version of this — ’cause, remember, they play words games; they understand propaganda — is anything you say or do that contradicts the official narrative must be treated as misinformation, including things like saying, ‘The vaccines don’t work to stop the spread,” which is a fact.

CLAY: That’s what’s so key here. Misinformation is oftentimes actually the truth if you allow the debate to continue. Just think about all the things that they were disallowing — the government was trying to keep you from being able to see — by pressuring Big Tech companies. I want to make it clear to everyone out there. The government itself cannot do this.

That would be a flagrant constitutional violation for the government to come in, for instance, and say to Facebook, “Hey, you can’t allow audiences to see this,” to say to Twitter, to say to Instagram. But they can put all the pressure on the Big Tech companies and back-door what is a default censorship that would be impermissible for the government itself to do.

But, Buck, just listen to things. They were not allowing anyone to argue that covid likely escaped from a Chinese lab. It’s now more likely than not that covid idea escape from a Chinese lab. That was considered misinformation that would get you banned on Facebook or Twitter. You were not allowed to say in the early days — as our friend Alex Berenson who was banned for this.

You weren’t allowed to say in the early days of the covid shot, the covid vaccine, “Hey, the data suggests that there’s still going to be spread and also that you’re still going to be able to get it even if you get the covid shot.” That was considered to be misinformation. The idea that natural immunity was stronger in many cases and the covid vaccine was not allowed to be shared.

The idea that cloths masks did not work and provided no benefit whatsoever, which is basically what the data reflects — at the absolute best, tiny little bit. The idea that kids could go safely to school without needing to socially distance and without needing to wear masks all day was considered to be misinformation. All of those things, Buck — based on the data that we have been able to uncover — are clearly, clearly more likely to be true or 100% true now, and the government labeled them misinformation and we weren’t allowed to discuss them.

BUCK: To call something misinformation in the absence of certainty is dishonesty. We can start from that premise, right?

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: If I say someone is putting misinformation out there, you’ll notice why don’t they just say the term “lie”?

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: There’s a reason why they stay away from “lie” because people would say, “Well, hold on a second. If I tell people that I don’t want to get a booster shot because I don’t believe it is necessary for me. I think it will not help me. I just had covid.” I’m about to lose my mind here. Am I spreading misinformation?” They will say, yes, by the way. I’m not lying.

But this is the point. The reason they use the term “misinformation” is that it’s about deviation from the approved Fauci-Biden narrative, and it’s very similar, Clay — ’cause I was pointing this out. I remember I used to have my buddy Andy McCarthy on who’s a Fox News and former Southern District guy. We’d talk about this sometimes I’d have him on radio. You notice they never used the term — in the Russia era with Trump, right, the Russia thing.

They weren’t saying “conspiracy” ’cause conspiracy is actually a provable criminal charge. They kept saying “collusion.” There was a reason they did that because collusion is whatever they say it is. It’s not actually unless you’re doing price fixing for companies. That’s technical collusion, but they created this whole new narrative based on around a term that they could apply to whatever they want. You see this with the left with “white supremacy.”

Clay, what is white supremacy? Anything that stands in the way of the diversity and inclusion left-wing racial Marxism that’s out there, right? That’s white supremacy now. They’ve done this as well with “misinformation.” When they’re talking about suppressing “misinformation,” they are explicitly, to anyone who understands the game, saying, “We don’t want people to be able to even make alternative policy arguments.” This is the center of the First Amendment!

CLAY: I agree. And again, for people out there, if I came on and I said, “Hey, you know what? Water freezes at 38 degrees,” then a lot of out there would say, well, you know what? The data seems pretty clear. It’s a scientific certainty that water freezes at 32 degrees, right? That’s where we get ice. That’s been proven time after time after time. So when you are saying something other than that temperature, you are spreading something that is untrue.

But when you have scientific lack of certainty, and you have a novel virus that we are still learning about, and you are insisting constantly that there’s only one approved message and that the government wants to put pressure on Big Tech companies to ensure that their only message is allowed to be shared? Iit doesn’t, first of all, create any kind of consensus, right?

Because people were saying, “Oh, you’re trying to spread conspiracy theories.” Well, the reality is — there’s a great meme — the difference between a conspiracy theory as it pertains to covid and the truth is about six months, right? It takes about six months for everything to catch up. But when you insist on an artificial version that is not 100% scientifically proven, being the only allowable position to take?

You’re actually seeding the ground, Buck, for conspiracy. The government’s perspective, rather than being transparent and saying, “Frankly, we don’t know about a lot of these things and so we should debate it and consider it for public policy perspectives,” they’re actually seeding the ground for conspiracy because people see the data and say, “That doesn’t add up,” which creates fertile terrain for all sorts of different beliefs to take place.

BUCK: We have more on the reality of kids in school these days and what it actually means to them and the harms that they’re suffering, because we’re not allowed to say, “Misinformation,” which means disagree with people in the apparatus who are wrong all the time.