With the left about to lose control of the social media platform Twitter to Elon Musk, the Biden administration is proposing a new Ministry of Truth — formally known as a Disinformation Governance Board — that will allegedly “combat misinformation.”

The political left and its allies in government have exposed themselves as opponents to free speech. They hate the idea that a popular social media company may allow unfiltered political debate on controversial topics. Putting aside the inane social media meltdown about Mr. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, it is clear that governmental efforts to quash debate and speech online are the single biggest threat to free speech today.

Suppression and removal of content, account suspensions, or other losses of privileges imposed by private companies are problematic. The government, though, can impose fines or imprisonment for failure to comply with rules. The use of the government’s authority is dangerous to life and liberty when used to stifle speech.

The Biden administration is expressing a keen interest in controlling speech, in dictating what social media platforms can or cannot carry, even after feigning ambivalence. The White House spokeswoman, Jennifer Psaki, refused to comment on Mr. Musk, claiming that “the president has long talked about his concerns about the power of social media platforms, including Twitter and others, to spread misinformation.” 

The disinformation board should set off alarm bells across the country. The Biden administration is trying to institutionalize control of speech and punish noncompliance. Its message is clear: Anything it disagrees with is foreign disinformation and must be stopped. 

If you doubt the government’s intentions, look to how the left,  including Mr. Biden’s choice to lead the new disinformation board, initially responded to the Hunter Biden laptop story. They pushed the now-debunked idea that it was nothing more than Russian disinformation. 

Not only is the disinformation board alarming, but its placement within DHS is downright frightening. DHS has a national and homeland security focus with law enforcement capabilities. The intent of placing the board within DHS is to make the case that hosting content deemed problematic is a threat to national and homeland security. This in turn could hide the board’s speech-suppressing methods from the public’s eyes.

The disinformation board is not the DHS’s first attempt to control online speech, but an escalation. Earlier this year, DHS issued Terrorism Advisory Bulletins claiming that those who spread Covid and election disinformation enable extremists and terrorists.

The timing of the DOJ and SEC’s news leak is very suspicious. On the one hand, Mr. Musk’s run-ins with the SEC are nothing new. They’ve been around since at least 2018, when he and the SEC settled a securities fraud charge for $40 million. A couple years after the settlement, regulators expressed concerns that Mr. Musk violated its terms by tweeting, “Tesla’s stock was ‘too high.’”

Despite the history, the timing of the leak fails the smell test. The concerns expressed seem related to questions of whether the filing of paperwork was timely, rather than substantive legal concerns. This means that the investigation is intended to send a message: “Threaten our control of online speech, and we will unleash the full power of ‘a fully armed and operational’ government against you.”

State governments are also pressuring social media platforms to remove content they deem improper. The National Association of Secretaries of State launched a “#TrustedInfo2022” initiative that is ostensibly designed to drive “voters directly to election officials’ websites and social media pages.” The initiative may be used by individual secretaries to create tools for voters to report “election misinformation,” which in turn can be weaponized against citizens’ opinions, at least according to one lawsuit filed against the California secretary of state.

The left is afraid of Mr. Musk. They oddly view his commitment to First Amendment values as a threat to free speech, which proves their previous concerns for “free speech” were nothing more than a veneer. While Mr. Musk may be the left’s new bogeyman, its true fear is losing the ability to control what opinions people can express and read by diminishing speech deemed too offensive or sensitive. 

Government control of speech and intimidation of those who would threaten that control are the true dangers to free speech. While the suppression of content by private companies is troubling, only government has the power to fine and imprison. Society owes a great debt of gratitude to Mr. Musk for stripping the veneer off the political left.