We previously discussed the unrelenting drumbeat of censorship on the Internet from Democratic leaders, including President-elect Joe Biden. This growing campaign against free speech is continuing to grow despite the hearing yesterday when Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey that the company wrongly blocked the New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s influence peddling before the election. There was no acknowledgement from the many academics or politicians who supported the action by Twitter. Instead, Democratic senators called for more such censorship.
Dorsey’s statement was apologetic but still incomplete and evasive. He stated “We made a quick interpretation using no other evidence that the materials in the article were obtained through hacking, and according to our policy, we blocked them from being spread. Upon further consideration, we admitted this action was wrong and corrected it within 24 hours.”
There was no suggestion of hacking since the source of the information was identified as coming from an abandoned computer of Hunter Biden. Neither Biden nor his father’s campaign has ever denied that the laptop and the emails were his. Moreover, Twitter blocked the New York Post for two weeks, not 24 hours. The New York Post refused to take down the story and it took two weeks for Twitter to lift the block. As a result, it blocked the newspaper during the critical run up to the election.
However, it was not Dorsey’s statement but the response of Democratic senators that was so unnerving. Various senators demanded more such censorship. As I have stated before as someone from a staunchly Democratic family in Chicago, I never imagined that the party would embrace censorship as a rallying cry. Yet, attacking free speech has become a common theme on the left.
This is precisely how the crackdown on free speech in Europe began. Once politicians convinced the public to surrender this right to fight hateful views, countries like France, Germany and England plunged into greater and greater criminalization and regulation of speech. In a particularly worrisome move, Biden selected one of the most anti-free speech figures in the United States to head his transition team on media agency offices.
The fear of our going down the same road as Europe was magnified in yesterday’s hearing as senators pressed the companies for many censorship. One of the most chilling moments came from Delaware Senator Chris Coons who demonstrated the very essence of the “slippery slope” danger.
Dorsey: Well, misleading information, as you are aware, is a large problem. It’s hard to define it completely and cohesively. We wanted to scope our approach to start to focus on the highest severity of harm. We focused on three areas, manipulated media, which you mentioned, civic integrity around the election, specifically in public health, specifically around COVID. We wanted to make sure that our resources that we have the greatest impact on where we believe the greatest severity of harm is going to be. Our policies are living documents. They will evolve. We will add to them, but we thought it important that we focus our energies and prioritize the work as much as we could.
Coons: Well, Mr. Dorsey, I’ll close with this. I cannot think of a greater harm than climate change, which is transforming literally our planet and causing harm to our entire world. I think we’re experiencing significant harm as we speak. I recognize the pandemic and misinformation about COVID-19, manipulated media also cause harm, but I’d urge you to reconsider that because helping to disseminate climate denialism, in my view, further facilitates and accelerates one of the greatest existential threats to our world. So thank you to both of our witnesses.
Notably, Dorsey starts with the same argument made by free speech advocates: “Well, misleading information, as you are aware, is a large problem. It’s hard to define it completely and cohesively.” However, instead of then raising concerns over censoring views and comments on the basis for such an amorphous category, Coons pressed for an expansion of the categories of censored material to prevent people from sharing any views that he considers “climate denialism”
There is, of course, a wide array of views that different people or different groups would declare “harmful.” Indeed, Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal seemed to take the opposite meaning from Twitter admitting that it was wrong to censor the Biden story. Blumenthal said that he was “concerned that both of your companies are, in fact, backsliding or retrenching, that you are failing to take action against dangerous disinformation.” Accordingly, he demanded an answer to this question:
“Will you commit to the same kind of robust content modification playbook in this coming election, including fact checking, labeling, reducing the spread of misinformation, and other steps, even for politicians in the runoff elections ahead?”
“Robust content modification” has a certain Orwellian feel to it. It is not content modification. It is censorship. If the Democratic party is going crackdown on free speech, it should admit to being the party of censorship and join those who have insisted “China is right.” At least there would be an element of honesty in this growing campaign against free speech in the United States.
I’m afraid we’ve lost our Republic to greed, oligarchy, and PC-Cancel Culture. Like the romans we’ll evolve into a full blown Empire, slide into European Marxism, and then the world becomes China.
Here is something actually serious:
https://redirect.viglink.com/?format=go&jsonp=vglnk_160571181643910&key=71fe2139a887ad501313cd8cce3053c5&libId=khnjc8qe0102ylrr000MA74k5mzym&loc=https%3A%2F%2Fbravenewclimate.proboards.com%2Fsearch%2Fresults%3Fwho_at_least_one%3D%26who_except%3D%26who_member_group%3D%26who_threads_created_by%3D%26where_board_subboard%3D%26where_category%3D%26captcha_id%3Dcaptcha_search%26where_without%3D%26what_at_least_one%3DBloomberg%2B%26what_all%3D%26what_exact_phrase%3D%26who_only_made_by%3D2%26search%3DSearch&v=1&out=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pv-magazine.com%2F2020%2F10%2F29%2Fworld-is-set-for-3-3c-temperature-rise-predicts-bloomberg%2F&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fbravenewclimate.proboards.com%2Fsearch&title=Search%20Results%20%7C%20BNC%20Discussion%20Forum&txt=www.pv-magazine.com%2F2020%2F10%2F29%2Fworld-is-set-for-3-3c-temperature-rise-predicts-bloomberg%2F
From the report:
The latest edition of the, 30-year New Energy Outlook forecast produced by New York-based analyst Bloomberg has estimated the world is currently on track for a temperature rise of 3.3 degrees Celsius this century. There is still a ‘2C’ route open, according to the report, but it would come with a $78-130 trillion price tag.
Numerous studies have attempted to quantify how much money would be required to mitigate the impacts of climate change in the absence of a clean energy transition.
Under the business-as-usual scenario envisaged by the report, solar and wind generation would supply 56% of the world’s electricity by 2050 and, together with battery storage, would hog almost $12.1 trillion of the $15.1 trillion Bloomberg expects to be invested in new power capacity over the next three decades. The analyst expects an additional $14 trillion to be spent on grids during that time..
The latest New Energy Outlook features a clean electricity and hydrogen-driven ‘climate scenario’ path to less than 2C global heating but the report estimates it would require 100 PWh of electricity generation – with a third of it used for green hydrogen generation from renewables, using electrolysis. If the world plans to use the cheapest sources of electricity – solar and wind – that would require enough generation facilities to cover roughly the size of India, the report’s authors stated.
Jon Moore, CEO of the Bloomberg New Energy Finance wing of the business intelligence company which produces the forecast, said the next ten years would be critical in determining the global temperature rise in prospect and called for faster deployment of solar and wind power and speedier take-up of electric vehicles (EVs).
The report anticipates coal demand will peak in China by 2027 but in India only in 2030, with the heavily polluting fuel still supplying 12% of the world’s electricity in 2050. The forecast also tacitly acknowledges the role natural gas will continue to play in the global energy system, with demand set to rise 0.5% per year to mid century, with its use in buildings rising 33% and for industry 23% by mid century.
The outlook did at least join the voices predicting emissions from fuel combustion peaked last year, and predicted carbon emissions from that source will decline 0.7% annually from 2027 on. The report added, the Covid-19-related fall in energy demand seen this year will remove 2.5 years’ worth of energy-related emissions by mid century…”
With another grandkid on the way, this is personally worrisome to me.
Again, there was never any reason for Twitter, Facebook, or Google to insert themselves into political disputes. I’m hoping the result of this will be a stampede to Gab, Parler, and DuckDuckGo.
Impeachment is fun…..In Peru
Meanwhile Peruvian Congress Chooses 3rd President in a Week Amid Street Protests
The naming of Francisco Sagasti as the 3rd president was not expected to immediately quell popular anger at the country’s legislators, whom many Peruvians see as corrupt — and responsible for the turmoil.
Biden could be next
Dorsey might have “admitted censoring Hunter Biden story was wrong” but he’ll go right on doing it because he can. The entire hearing was a sad dog-and-pony show. Republicans acted tough and got their ridiculous headlines…but there will be no effort to actually fix the problem and end tech’s stranglehold on information. So…business as usual.
Become active and write your legislators, ALL OF THEM!!!! Republican and Democrat alike. Currently they work for you but if Patriots don’t exercise their rights……. you will loose them.
Check out Giftapart’s social media: Earn $$$, FREE SPEECH & easy to xshare posts to TW & FB.
https://info.giftapart.com/Social.html
The Democrats are the party of losing ideas. Thus, they have to control all sources of information so the populace is blind to the truth.
I wish someone would have asked about Trumps hacked tax returns. The man from Facebook said they dont allow hacked stories and they thought Biden story was. Well. That is not the truth because they did not censor Trumps tax story which wS hacked. People are switching to the kid. Parlor
Given the array of forces against your free speech, your right to keep and bear arms and your right to your own conscience, I’d suggest you buy a firearm and learn how to use it. Then seek others with similar sensibilities. With police neutered and the Dim occupation government complicit in denying your rights, militias are likely your only defense. The Minute Men may now become the Once and Future Men and you may get the chance to become a patriot. Living in glorious times has its advantages.
Yeah, but remember, mespo always gets to be Action Jackson, can’t get his tassled loafers dirty,
It’s “Andrew” Jackson but who ever thought you liked history.
Amass supplies of smokeless powder, primers, bullets, lead, casting equipment, and reloading dies as well.
Stockpile ammo if you can get it. Buy a dry fire practice system to keep sharp without using up your ammo.
Stay vigilant but stay peaceful.
Mr. Turkey, would you please address who can bring action against these attacks on our Constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech, and who would enforce such a successful ruling especially against these nut case, Nazi like Senators who are infinity more dangerous to us and the world than their false concerns over climate change.
Recall from Philosophy 101 the story of Socrates: He was a questioner (What is truth, justice,etc.) and butted heads with the sophists who practiced rhetoric rather than truth seeking. Socrates was censored for his questioning in a rather dramatic way- forced to drink the poison hemlock, being found guilty of corrupting the youth by his questioning the political correctness of the day.
Prof Turley is right that the standard for harm done needs to be very high for speech censorship. Unfortunately, all “lines not to be crossed” in speech are not categorical imperatives (universal rules with no exceptions). The standards are good faith efforts to provide reasonable guidance, but can’t really be 100% certain for close calls, the famous gray areas. For example few people object to sexually suggestive speech between consenting adults, everyone would object to sexually suggestive speech between an adult and a child. Like statutory rape laws, some line has to be drawn to avoid a rules vacuum leading to all sorts of evil. But the gray areas will always occur in our world of complexity. There may be an anti- sex crime rule defining children as under 18, meaning that such activities between a 17.5 year old and an 18.5 year old is a crime by the older person. Again, we can’t simply avoid gray areas without chaos resulting. Standards are always trade offs between the good of preventing clear cases of abuse and the bad of gray area harms of freedom of association. The lines drawn will always being the source of contention whether the standards are high or low.
The standards for censorship of a basic right like speech need high bars of harm to be attained. Being considered a wrong, untruthful opinion should not an excuse for censorship. Sometimes people base their evil actions on stupid opinions that they read. The opinion may be a reason for their bad action, but it is not the determining cause of the action, the actor’s free choice is the cause. (for example an eco-terrorist may base their terror on some incorrect opinion in an op-ed about the problem of pollution. But we do not blame the op-ed writer and censor their work, we blame the terrorist.)
If Democrats want to lose the Georgia runoff election in January, for control of the U.S. Senate, this is a great way to lose voters.
Civil Liberties used to be a strong suit of democrats. I was hopeful when the Patriot Act was up for renewal and they controlled all 3 branches of government, only to see them renew it as is, not a single modification to protect liberty. They essentially joined in with the Bush Admin and Ashcroft in attacking liberty. Now they are taking it to a whole new level.
I wonder if these Senators even understand what they seem to be proposing. What is truth and whose truth do we use? There are plenty of threads on Bigfoot and UFOs. Are they the truth? Unlike many, I personally have no problem with anyone posting what they want as opinion.
It seems it is a Democrat push right now, but I am not so sure that Republicans would be any better if the whip changes hands.
It is also obvious that Americans can think for themselves. Once again the polls are not close again even with the media blitz so pro Biden and Democrats. If the media keeps in the bag for one side or the other, they just might make themselves irrelevant and that would be a shame.
Right now it looks like the social media platforms are doing content censoring instead of a neutral provider. That seems to me they should face the consequences of being such.
I will hold out this thought, it will be interesting to see if the social media giants come back to content neutral. I wonder if they moved so far to one side because Trump was so infuriatingly obnoxious they lost all sense of propriety.
Thank you, Dr Turley,
I disagree with you half the time and that is a good thing. That is why I subscribe to your blog. You have never wavered from your support of free speech. Continue writing more blogs like this one.
If it is intolerable to demand a devoutly religious pastry chef to make a cake celebrating a homosexual union on account that doing so offends her religion, then it stands to reason that a profoundly moral and civil owner of an internet communications company can institute rules prohibiting speech that dehumanizes persons just as this blog has conduct rules as well. If society can legitimately refuse to platform terrorist propaganda celebrating killing, and domestic incitements of clear and present danger, and child pornography, it can rationally refuse other speech it deems worthy of placing in that off-limits category. When you call liberals “cockroaches” as does Mark Levin or “vermin” as does Michael Savage, is there any doubt what needs to be done with liberals? There is no good speech to offset such hate speech. The only solution is to refuse them a microphone until they stop such dangerous speech. They are free to stand in a public park to dehumanize liberals.
“When you call liberals “cockroaches” as does Mark Levin or “vermin” as does Michael Savage, is there any doubt what needs to be done with liberals? There is no good speech to offset such hate speech.
*************************
Let’s all say what we want and then your cockroaches and vermin can sue for libel. They’d likely lose since truth is an absolute defense but the cross-exam would still be fun on both sides.
Silberman = pot calling kettle black.
Unlike others being called racists for disagreeing with the Liberal doctrine. Free speech is messy and ugly. That is as it should be. If you want censorship, I suggest you first. Now tell me how you feel about censorship? It seems to me that those that call for censorship should be the first censored.
No it doesn’t. There is a difference between Twitter and Bob, the Christian Baker. Put on your thinking cap and see if you can figure out what teh difference is.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky is 100% correct! To equate forcing a baker to produce a cake with a platform is just dumb. Just so you know, the baker does not ban gays from shopping at his bakery, he just didn’t want to make the cake in question. Would you require an Islamic baker to make a cake for a Bibi’s celebration of victory? How about forcing a gay baker to make a cake for Liberty University? How about forcing Streisand to sing at Trump’s Inaugural Ball? You can’t ban Barbra from attending the inauguration…and you can’t force her to perform there.
I don’t understand the determination of the left to impose censorship.
Anybody with even a modicum of common sense knows that censorship is a two edged sword and will inevitably be used against the left at some point.
And for those urging a dramatic swing to the left, read history – every revolution brought it’s founders to tears.
monument. it is not clear that “Democrats” favor censorship. Maybe some, maybe some not. I don’t care what social media does – they are private companies operating on an unlimited platform. If you care about censorship, consider our regulated public airwaves which had their “fairness doctrine” removed by Republicans in the 1980s and the result has been 24/7 coast top coast right wing radio, much of it programmed by large companies which own the stations. You care about that?
PS There are no “revolutions” on the horizon. This is a centrist country with the 2 parties largely in agreement on the big issues and fighting to the death on the margins and how to achieve goals we mostly all agree on. There is no Nazi or Communist Party in our system – places in Europe and other parts of the world do have them. We mostly agree on a multi-racial, non-discriminatory,free enterprise based economy, with socialistic programs for necessities and and safety-net functions (highways, defense, highways and infrastructure, education, Social Security, Medicare). We fight over the details and adding new socialist programs like Health Insurance (but not health care) and weakening others (public education). Big f..king deal.
The Dems senators receive their
Talking points each day from their
Caucus.
No deviation allowed.
The Republican senators receive their
Talking points each day from their
Caucus.
No deviation allowed.
That’s a lie.
Mitt Romney didn’t get the memo. Lisa Murkowski didn’t get the memo. Susan Collins didn’t get the memo. McCain didn’t get the memo. Rand Paul didn’t get the memo. On and on…..
Who in the Dem caucus dares to step out of line for fearing the wrath of Dear Leader?
As I understand it, some European nations have parliaments where voters choose the political party instead of the individual candidate. The political party basically appoints the candidate, not the voter. Not criticizing foreign governments but the American system was designed to operate that way.
It’s curious that both American political parties have sometimes gamed the system to disqualify candidates that strongly support the Bill of Rights and individual liberties. Maybe some reforms to consider would be “ranked choice voting” like in Maine, removing party labels from primary elections and national “referendum elections” about 6 months before the final candidate election (so voters would be better represented). For those that support the American system over foreign models, it would greatly improve the process. The business community would benefit as well from referendum-elections since they could better serve consumers.
Don’t our elected Senators have something better to do? Are Facebook and Twitter imperfect? Yes, but and it is a big BUT, hundreds of millions of Americans have voted by using both services. We like them, with all of. their imperfections. Are they slated to the left – of course – but most of us know that. Would we like it different – sure – but we have not abandoned the services. Beating up on the social media companies gets our elected folks TV exposure and creates a lot of noise, but little light. Senators, go back to work on something matters and quit trying to limit free speech.
That is the point. Facebook and Twitter are limiting free speech.
lorenberg, the problem is that many people choose to use these imperfect services for their only sources of news. This matters if these services are suppressing news or viewpoints that they disagree with. If the services were used just to socialize or something, then yeah, let’s just pretend that everything’s okay. Look at those Biden voters who admit that they wouldn’t have voted for him had they heard the news about Hunter Biden’s laptop. These are the same voters who only get their news from Twitter and Facebook.
DV, anyone who uses social media for their news is an idiot. Hey, find something you look up from better sources? Sure. But for news, garbage in, garbage out. MIght as well ask the guy living under the bridge.
“MIght as well ask the guy living under the bridge.”
***
And be sure to get his ballot for Democrats as they do in California.
Would we like it different – sure – but we have not abandoned the services.
Did you get that factoid from Twitter? Parler has exploded in subscribers; they don’t censor.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/watch/parler-ceo-people-should-be-free-to-express-themselves-without-fear-or-retaliation/vp-BB1b70Hq