In recent years, Louisiana has taken the lead in protesting viewpoint discrimination by government proxy through the private sector. Its policy-makers should do so again and expand those efforts in covering when the private sector does business with state government.
In the Murthy v. Missouri case, Louisiana played a major role taking up the cause of one of its then-citizens whose viewpoints on health decision-making were discriminated against by social media companies, which in isolation was uncontroversial except that government actively steered the companies in that direction. The judiciary held this to be state-sponsored speech suppression, but it also determined that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue. A narrower case, without the state’s involvement, then filed brought a settlement where certain federal government agencies could not engage in that discrimination.
There are other ways in which Louisiana has fought viewpoint discrimination. A few years ago, the State Bond Commission, then led by then-Treas. John Schroder, declared it would not do business with entities that discriminated by viewpoint, specifically with those that refused to do business with gun manufacturers. Republican Gov. Jeff Landry the year he took office issued an executive order covering higher education institutions, which prohibits state agencies and public institutions from discriminating against students, faculty, or staff based on their political ideas and aims to foster a culture where individuals do not face retribution for their speech or political beliefs.
Unfortunately, Louisiana state government now, unknowingly and indirectly, subsidizes viewpoint discrimination. A cottage industry has developed where firms that “rate” media outlets for alleged “disinformation” proclivities offer this data to advertisers, who may use this in decisions determining in which outlets to advertise.
The problem is that “disinformation” often becomes conflated with ideological preferences unmoored from objectivity, if not reality. Two such agencies, the American-based NewsGuard and Britain-based Global Disinformation Index, show clear bias in their assessments by favoring leftist media outlets over outlets that run more stories where the facts lead to conclusions more in line with conservative policy preferences. Problematically, that creates incentive to suppress those viewpoints.
State governments employ advertising agencies by which to disseminate information appertaining to public relations campaigns. But by using those outfits that subscribe to the censorious businesses’ lists, in essence this creates a pass-through subsidization of tax dollars propping up those businesses and validating discrimination against ideologically-disfavored viewpoints.
Some states have recognized their role in stifling speech in this fashion and have acted to prevent that. For the past two years, Florida’s budget has disallowed state agencies to spend money on advertisers that do business with the censoring agencies. West Virginia has gone further by passing earlier this year a statute prohibits state agencies and public funds from being used to support or contract with advertising agencies, marketing companies, or media monitors that utilize ideological ratings, media “blacklists,” or fact-checking organizations to guide their advertisement placements.
Louisiana should join in this relief. Landry could issue an executive order replicating the West Virginia law. He also could sign next year a law doing the same, even expanding it to all local governments, and also a budget with language paralleling Florida’s. Without vetting every contract the state makes it’s impossible to know how much state advertising/marketing dollars are involved, but perhaps the biggest utilizer of such spending, the Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism, typically will spend annually at least several million dollars on that function.
Government dollars shouldn’t encourage viewpoint discrimination. Louisiana policy-makers should take the steps necessary to see that their taxpayer resources align with that sentiment.
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