We have been discussing the calls for top Democrats for increased private censorship on social media and the Internet. President-elect Joe Biden has himself called for such censorship, including blocking President Donald Trump’s criticism of mail-in voting. Now, shortly after the election, one of Biden’s top aides is ramping up calls for a crackdown on Facebook for allowing Facebook users to read views that he considers misleading — users who signed up to hear from these individuals. Bill Russo, a deputy communications director on Biden’s campaign press team, tweeted late Monday that Facebook “is shredding the fabric of our democracy” by allowing such views to be shared freely.
Russo tweeted that “If you thought disinformation on Facebook was a problem during our election, just wait until you see how it is shredding the fabric of our democracy in the days after.” Russo objected to the fact that, unlike Twitter, Facebook did not move against statements that he and the campaign viewed as “misleading.” He concluded. “We pleaded with Facebook for over a year to be serious about these problems. They have not. Our democracy is on the line. We need answers.”
For those of us in the free speech community, these threats are chilling. We saw incredible abuses before the election in Twitter barring access to a true story in the New York Post about Hunter Biden and his alleged global influence peddling scheme. Notably, no one in the Biden camp (including Biden himself) thought that it was a threat to our democracy to have Twitter block the story (while later admitting that it was a mistake).
I have previously objected to such regulation of speech. What is most disturbing is how liberals have embraced censorship and even declared that “China was right” on Internet controls. Many Democrats have fallen back on the false narrative that the First Amendment does not regulate private companies so this is not an attack on free speech. Free speech is a human right that is not solely based or exclusively defined by the First Amendment. Censorship by Internet companies is a “Little Brother” threat long discussed by free speech advocates. Some may willingly embrace corporate speech controls but it is still a denial of free speech.
This is why I recently described myself as an Internet Originalist:
The alternative is “internet originalism” — no censorship. If social media companies returned to their original roles, there would be no slippery slope of political bias or opportunism; they would assume the same status as telephone companies. We do not need companies to protect us from harmful or “misleading” thoughts. The solution to bad speech is more speech, not approved speech.
If Pelosi demanded that Verizon or Sprint interrupt calls to stop people saying false or misleading things, the public would be outraged. Twitter serves the same communicative function between consenting parties; it simply allows thousands of people to participate in such digital exchanges. Those people do not sign up to exchange thoughts only to have Dorsey or some other internet overlord monitor their conversations and “protect” them from errant or harmful thoughts.
Russo’s comments mirror the comments of other Democrats who are seeking greater censorship. Indeed, in the recent Senate hearing on Twitter’s suppression of the Biden story, Democratic senators ignored the admissions of Big Tech CEOs that they were wrong to bar the story and, instead, insisted that the CEOs pledge to substantially increase such censorship. Senator Jacky Rosen warned the CEOS that “you are not doing enough” to prevent “disinformation, conspiracy theories and hate speech on your platforms.”
Again, as someone raised in a deeply liberal and Democratic family in Chicago, I do not know when the Democratic party became the party for censorship. However, limiting free speech is now a rallying cry for Democratic members and activists alike. At risk is the single greatest invention for free speech since the printing press. Russo’s comments reaffirms that the Biden Administration will continue this assault against Internet free speech. What is most unnerving is that Russo is denouncing such free speech as “shredding the fabric of our democracy.” There was a time when free speech was the very right that we fought to protect in our democratic system. It was one of the defining principles of our Constitution system. It is now being treated as a threat to that system.
JT: “Censorship by Internet companies is a ‘Little Brother’ . . .”
That metaphor, and your position, blurs a fundamental distinction between private action and government action. The essence of the former is choice; of the latter, physical force. Facebook, et al., do not have a police force. They cannot compel me to do anything. Only the government can. I might disagree with Twitter’s suppression policies (and I do). But Twitter cannot confiscate my newspaper, compel my blog to be shut down, fine me, or put me in jail. *Only* government censorship can do those things.
Incidentally, by blurring this crucial distinction, you open yourself up to the charge of “censorship” (and of being a “Little Brother”), anytime you suppress a blog comment (irrespective of your reasons).
Bill Russo is just another in a line of many who have NO KNOWLEDGE about the foundations of America, of which Free Speech is only 1 of the most important.
I suppose that if I posted that He Should End His Life, this would meet his threshold of speech that should be banned? So, he becomes the free speech monitor? If that is the case, Please BR take a suggestion!
JT the other day you noted how thrilled your family was at Biden’s election. I’m curious are they in concert with his party calling for certain censorship?
How do they feel about a special prosecutor regarding the laptop? Obviously this will not happen just as nothing was done regarding Russia Russia Russia.
Turley refers to “the true New York Post story” then immediately backtracks & admits the story is unverified allegations. The long standing principle of being innocent until proven guilty gets tossed out the window by Turley. He fixates on the unverified NY Post story while ignoring Trump’s well-documented 4 year history of making one allegation after another about massive voter fraud, insisting he won the popular vote in 2016 & claiming millions of Democrats voted multiple times wearing disguises in the 2018 midterms.
Turley keeps comparing Democrats asking for a recount in Florida when 537 votes separated Bush & Gore to the Trump campaign filing lawsuits in 5 separate states where Biden leads by 12,000 – 20,000 votes. Judges tossed out 6 of those lawsuits.
I suspect Turley secretly envies attorneys with clients like Trump & his campaign forking over tens of millions of dollars to file one lawsuit after another. Attorneys get paid handsomely regardless of whether their clients’ lawsuits get tossed out. Definitely a great gig. Turley is probably waiting with cellphone in hand right now with the prospect of the Trump campaign calling & offering a financial windfall for his services to keep filing frivilous, meritless lawsuits across this great land of ours from sea to shining sea.
“Turley refers to “the true New York Post story” then immediately backtracks & admits the story is unverified allegations.”
No, he didn’t backtrack. The subject of the NYPost story is under investigation.
Why are you lying?
You lie a lot,
I presume that if Turley is hired he will have to shut down this blog until he has finished his representation because he holds himself out here as an impartial commentator as opposed to an advocate though I think it is obvious that he is biased on account of his long time friendship with Bill Barr about whom he raises nary a dissenting view, to his everlasting discredit.
Be afraid . . . Be V E R Y AFRAID !!
In order to implement such a policy, doesn’t Biden have to take the oath of office first?
ACA oral argument coming up. You covering it, JT? If severability was the intent of Congress in 2017, why not repeal the individual mandate altogether?
Turley tweets: “Chief Justice Roberts just joined Kavanaugh in referring to the “compelling evidence” in support of severability. The media fueled the unsupported claim in the Barrett confirmation that the ACA was about to be struck down and that Barrett was part of a grand conspiracy to do so.”
Justice Barrett’s first question this morning:
“What should we make of the fact that Congress didn’t formally repeal the individual mandate’s penalty?”
https://twitter.com/SCOTUSblog/status/1326185112053166082
Chief Justice Roberts to Texas Solicitor General Hawkins:
Maybe it’s true that some lawmakers would have wanted the court to strike down the full law, but “that’s not our job,” Roberts says.
https://twitter.com/SCOTUSblog/status/1326195073042817029
According to Brandenburg v Ohio, we need to distinguish “incitement to imminent lawless action” from “conspiracy theories;” protect the right to express the latter; and censor the tendency to express former.
Bannon using Facebook and Twitter to call for the “beheading” of Fauci and Wray is a shredding of our democracy. Trump using Facebook and Twitter to protest a “stolen” election? Maybe not.
So much for “unity” Biden! Unity in ostracizing, demonizing and targeting almost half the country (maybe more after the dead ones are taken out from Biden’s counts).
Of course they want censorship, next will come book burning, the end of the 2nd Amendment, and God knows what else. I’ve said it for years, never underestimate the stupidity of the American public, and in particular Democrats.
There was a time when free speech was the very right that we fought to protect in our democratic system.
IOW, you are now disillusioned that your religion of democracy has come down crashing. Shame on you Jonathan Turley for succumbing to idolatry. Your mythical belief in a religion of democracy is not rooted in the history, nay, legal charters of this once great country. The inevitable now awaits us. This is on you, Turley.
Abyssus abyssum invocat
A COMMON ENEMY, A COMMON CAUSE
by Father John Courtney Murray SJ
There is another development which it is beyond the province of the Supreme Court to assist. I mean the development of the “religion of democracy” as the national religion of the U.S., by law established. This “religion of democracy” is our great contemporary myth. It is a secularist system of values, constructed without reference to God or to any human destiny beyond this world, that presents itself as a higher, more unifying religion than all “sectarianism.” It looks down with contempt upon the rivalries of sects, as somehow un-American. It wants all sectarian religion kept out of the public school, as divisive of the mystical unity of the American people, at the same time that it asserts itself to be the proper object of government support and promotion. Someone has called this “religion of democracy” the “public school sect.” It is truly a sectarian religion, with an orthodoxy and a vocabulary all its own. It is our contemporary nationalist myth, and it is a dangerous myth. Fundamentally, it is as dangerous as the myth of race against which we fought a war, or the myth of class with which we are now engaged in struggle that, please God, may find some other issue than war.… It matters not whether the idol one worships is compounded of blood and soil, or made of seeming gold; it is none the less an idol. And the worship of idols is sacrilegious, and leads to enslavement. I am concerned about the rising religion of democracy, whose church would be the public school. The Supreme Court exists in order to protect the U.S. citizen from any establishment of religion in our democracy; it would be a curious irony if it somehow assisted the establishment of the religion of democracy
https://www.firstthings.com/article/1992/10/a-common-enemy-a-common-cause
Estovir, that’s a fine quote but let me give you some good reading on John Courtney Murray. Guess who he was best buddies with ? Time Life’s Henry Luce
Here is the history of their shenanigans behind the scenes of Vatican II.
https://books.google.com/books/about/John_Courtney_Murray.html?id=iMzBsgEACAAJ
John Courtney Murray: Time/Life and the American Proposition : how the CIA’s Doctrinal Warfare Program Changed the Catholic Church
The ACLU has been rather selective in taking up causes lately. I think that is the point.
I grew up in a ‘deeply liberal city’ and all I hear the professor saying is that he grew up in a ‘deeply privileged family’ wherein he was likely shielded from many of the realities of life on the ground. It could be JT, that your liberal heroes of your were *never* as egalitarian as you thought. They are great freedom fighters – so long as your idea of freedom and theirs align. This is not remotely new.
I have been with these privileged folk too much of my life, I’ve even worked DNC events; generally speaking, if one disagrees that person is clearly just stupid (these days – racist, needs to be purged, fascist, etc.). To those of us on the other side this is nothing novel. Strong arming has always come down to economic and social privilege (it’s how I know dems are full of crap regarding equity. I’ve had 33 years of professional experience with their brand of ‘equity’. We are chattle to them, too dumb to tie our shoes. Surely we would perish without THEIR enlightenment).
There were a great many minor aristocracies in our country that are now rampant and full blown, and though I may be incorrect and happy to admit as much if corrected, and though I am deeply appreciative of his analysis, so much of the prof’s writing that relates to the more personal sounds like his family was/is one.
*yore
How the Democratic Party has changed!
FDR listed freedom of speech as one of his four freedoms, followed by freedom of religion, freedom from fear, and freedom from want.
What Russo is proposing not only collides with the first of those freedoms, it violates the third, and if a person is blacklisted, the fourth.
Real liberals, like Ivo Banac, understood this, so Banac defended the right of free speech. A link.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/sep/02/humanrights.balkans
The old Democratic Party also supported the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which are indivisible. Freedom of opinion and expression (a.k.a., free speech) can be found in Article 19. If free speech has ‘consequences,’ that is, if those who exercise it are punished for doing so, then it is, by definition, not free. It is coerced.
https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
The democrats are Delores Umbridge.
I’ve had precisely the same thought at times. It has always made me crook an eyebrow with Rowling and her leanings, considering she wrote the character. I don’t see any Republicans or Independents lighting things on fire or putting up websites cataloguing ‘dissidents’.
The world according to JT:
The President doing all he can to de-legitimize a clean election (actually trying to destroy democracy): More please!
A private company not wanting to have their platform used to help destroy said democracy; Horrible and must be stopped!
+10
Pretty much sums it up Molly. JT is just another foot soldier in the zombie army, doing his part for Dear Leader.
Dear MollyG:
Thank you for your service. Your efforts on behalf of the Party have not gone unrecognized.
+10
705 billionaires in America and they call all the shots.
DEMOCRACY? ha!
end the billionaire caste and free the people from this gilded cage!
–Saloth Sar
“de-legitimize a clean election”
You screamed like a stuck Pig for 4 years about a debunked Russian conspiracy theory that Russia defrauded voters by helping Trump win the election against the war criminal named Hillary.
But now that you think Biden won, it’s a “clean election”?!
You’re in for a very unpleasant surprise.
Hate speech censorship… I’ll give you an example how ridiculous it is I have quoted south park in the south park group on facebook once and got banned for 2 weeks, brainless, harmful and pointless.
I got some hate speech. Hate the billionaires who are our masters. End them
The only one I like is Donald Trump and for four years then been telling us he really wasnt a billionaire after all. So he can make the cut.
The rest? Pass a law– arrest, expropriate, and punish.,
–Saloth Sar
You are one sick mfer.
Americans may want to also support newspapers actually printed with ink on paper. In recent years there have been reports of federal agencies altering newspapers (First Amendment violation) or blocking electronic news. Facebook was exposed years ago for blocking trivial things like public fine art bronze statues. The nightly news we watch every night almost always originates from newspaper journalists. If we totally do away with ink & paper newspapers, magazines and journals – it could change the information American voters receive.
Electronic news sources also create a permanent record of the stories you read. If you’ve done nothing illegal and nothing to hide, what is the harm? Many government agencies essentially view certain topics as “probable cause” to perform illegal searches and can currently do this without a judicial search warrant – bypassing Judicial Branch judges altogether.
This unchecked practice leads to covert blacklisting where officials dish out extrajudicial punishment for your legal First Amendment exercise. Some states, like Virginia, actually operate covert blacklisting systems – lifetime punishments without ever confronting their targets. This covert system robs Americans of “legal standing” in a Judicial Branch court. Today there is not a single justice on the U.S. Supreme Court that understands the danger of Cointelpro-style blacklisting.
For example: you might be blacklisted for reading a post about the NRA, Black Lives Matter or environmental issues. A constitutionally oath sworn official may view your reading as “probable cause” to perform deeper illegal searches. News printed with ink and paper minimize this illegal practice by officials and private social media companies.
What a deceiving speech of unity, but expected. Biden makes this clarion call for “Unity”, “we are one people”, “Stop the Partisanship”, and yet, he and his minions are list makers, like the Nazis of World War II. Their site trumpaccountability.net is a platform to list ALL Trump supporters, whether it be campaign support, financial support, appointees. So what comes after the list is compiled? A knock on the door and people herded to DNC concentration camps? All personal possessions and homes seized and given away as ‘reparations’? Businesses shuttered and burned to the ground? Public executions to usher in the new DNC dystopian global nation?
There is a lot of insanity going on here. No one seems to care that Trump incited gangs of armed men to intimidate voters and candidates. No one here seems to care that Trump dismantled the Post Office to suppress votes. It’s all those nasty Democrats. Get a new song.
Justice, your comments are so far from reality that I wonder what brew you’re drinking so I can avoid it.
DV, there were literally court orders to the USPS to deal with the mess that Trump’s appointeee DeJoy created. Why are you having difficulty dealing with that reality?
+10
And what does Professor Turley say about his good “friend” Bill Barr now? Is he still a good man? Doing the bidding of the idiot in chief trying to overturn an election?
Please Professor, use what influence you have with your “friend” to bring back some semblance of decency to our government;.
Turkey jests, “I am not sure if I will be one of those found “complicit.”
No, you are not complicit, but you would do well to heed the words of Voltaire: “Everyman is guilty of all the good he did not do.” To my recollection, you have seen fit to call into question only one of Bill Barr’s orders, namely, his overseeing the clearing of protestors In front of the White House. It’s not too late to add your voice to the myriad of Republican and former AG’s and US attorney’s who have condemned many of Barr’s controversial actions and dubious statements. Despite your long and abiding friendship with this man, I fear that your professional reputation may well be sullied by not denouncing Barr who *will* undoubtedly be remembered as the Roy Cohn of Trumpism, for he did the legal bidding of an indisputably pathological liar whose presidential legacy is excrement.
“I fear that your professional reputation may well be sullied by not denouncing Barr” I fear the reputation of the good professor is already in tatters.
Do you understand the concept of free speech? You seem to be advocating for compelled speech!
The column is about the first amendment right – freedom of speech.
It is not about Bill Barr.
I understand that may be cathartic for you to pillory Barr and whatever actions of his you disagree with.
Beyond the call for censorship of speech and thought which is sad enough, it is equally, if not more so , incredibly sad that no one seems to care .
Certainly not my liberal, progressive, democrat friends , or my conservative , republican friends.
Where is the ACLU – seemingly MIA.
The ACLU understands the 1st Amendment and knows that it is legal for a private company to censor speech. Just what do you think the ACLU should be doing?