Let’s Restore Free Speech
The San Antonio Express News recently ran an article attacking Texas’s social media law and supporting mass censorship of conservatives.
At the time, Gov. Greg Abbott said the new law was meant to redress a perceived imbalance in how social media platforms treat right-leaning political voices. “Silencing conservative views is un-American, it’s un-Texan and it’s about to be illegal in Texas,” Abbott tweeted.
Unfortunately, this is a grave misunderstanding of the First Amendment. As a constitutional matter, the government cannot tell private companies what they can and cannot publish.
The problem with the above argument is that social media platforms are not publishers. Under Section 230 they are legally treated as telecom companies. They’re not “publishers” any more than your phone company or internet company are “publishers” for content transmitted through their utility infrastructure.
If they now profess to be publishers, then they should lose section 230 protection. As we may see in the text of the law itself, they are not considered publishers, so long as they abide by legal requirements, which include that moderation be in good faith.
If they claim that they are “publishers” then they should tell us openly, and we should remove their section 230 protections. Since they are not censoring in good faith, they should not get section 230 protections.
Unsurprisingly, the Texas traitor, Giovanni Capriglione, supports Big Tech censorship, and Big Tech’s phony arguments.
The problem with regulating social media companies, Capriglione told me, is that it creates “a slippery slope when we let the government say what we can say and think.”
Again, the social media platforms are not publishers. They are like utilities. The State of Texas merely intends to ensure that these utilities do not censor at the behest of the Democrat-controlled Federal government and extremist NGOs. Just as your phone company cannot cut off your phone service because it doesn’t like what you said, social media companies should not be allowed to censor you because they do not like your viewpoint. Texas’ social media law, also known as H.B. 20, simply prohibits viewpoint discrimination.
For some time now, the Biden regime and leftist non-governmental organizations (NGOs), like the ADL, have been pressuring Big Tech to censor conservative speech.
Here are some examples:
They cannot get the government to do it, because of that pesky First Amendment. So last year, they pressured Big Tech to do it for them.
President Joe Biden wants to suppress speech that discourages Americans from being vaccinated against COVID-19. Because the First Amendment doesn’t allow him to do that, he is asking Facebook and other social-media giants to do it for him.
Or at least, that’s the way White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who calls the Biden administration’s demands for speech restrictions “our asks,” describes the situation. But given the federal government’s power to make life difficult for Facebook and other firms, the line between a request and a command is hazy, and so is the line between private content moderation and government censorship.”
More recently, the Democrats in Congress have been threatening Big Tech to censor more.
For the third time in less than five months, the U.S. Congress has summoned the CEOs of social media companies to appear before them, with the explicit intent to pressure and coerce them to censor more content from their platforms. On March 25, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will interrogate Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, Facebooks’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai at a hearing which the Committee announced will focus “on misinformation and disinformation plaguing online platforms.”
The Committee’s Chair, Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), and the two Chairs of the Subcommittees holding the hearings, Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), said in a joint statement that the impetus was “falsehoods about the COVID-19 vaccine” and “debunked claims of election fraud.” They argued that “these online platforms have allowed misinformation to spread, intensifying national crises with real-life, grim consequences for public health and safety,” adding: “This hearing will continue the Committee’s work of holding online platforms accountable for the growing rise of misinformation and disinformation.”
In effect, the Democrat-controlled government and NGOs are outsourcing censorship to Big Tech. They tell them: “Do as we say, or we will use state power to punish you!”
This gets us to the reason why conservatives have been losing for the last half century or so. Leftists use state power to impose their views. But when conservatives get control of the state, they are tricked into not using it. Conservatives are told: “It would be wrong to use state power! Conservatism is about limited government!” The result is a ratchet effect, where each Democrat-controlled government imposes another level of Leftism, and subsequent Republican-controlled governments never roll it back.
The San Antonio Express and Giovanni Capriglione are trying to trick us once more. No! If the Biden regime and NGOs like the ADL are outsourcing censorship to Big Tech, we should use state power to protect the First Amendment.
Imagine if we lived in a society where one company had a monopoly on pens, and another company had a monopoly on paper—Big Paper. Suppose that they imposed “terms of service” prohibiting the use of pen and paper for conservative writing. Further suppose that the federal government and NGOs did an end-run around the First Amendment by outsourcing censorship to these monopolies. Would state governments not be justified to intervene to restore the first amendment? Of course they would.
Instead, they expect us to believe that freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, and censorship is free speech. Do not fall for it! Texas should use state power to restore the free speech rights of conservatives. Republicans used to understand this.
Leftists fear free speech because they cannot win an open debate. This is because their beliefs are based on lies. To give just one example, their belief that there are 67 genders cannot withstand scientific scrutiny and free and open debate. This is why they want censorship. Thinking of all their lies I am reminded of what the Bible states in John 8:44.
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
Recently, Big Tech lobbyist swamp creatures sued and obtained an injunction to stop implementation of the Texas law. We are saddened to report that Texas traitors Scott Keller and Kyle Hawkins collaborated with Big Tech to eliminate the First Amendment rights of Texans.
Represented by two former Texas solicitors general, Scott Keller and Kyle Hawkins, as well as Paul Clement, who served as the U.S. solicitor general during the George W. Bush administration, the trade groups told the justices that H.B. 20 violates “bedrock First Amendment principles established by” the Supreme Court, which has “repeatedly recognized that private entities” – including websites – “have the right under the First Amendment to determine whether and how to disseminate speech.”
Thankfully, the fifth circuit lifted the injunction on Texas’ enforcement of HB 20. Judges Andrew Oldham, Edith Jones, and Leslie Southwick stood up to the attempt by Big Tech and the Biden Regime to nullify our democracy.
Now we just need Ken Paxton to actually enforce the law and stop the insurrection against the First Amendment. It would be a nice bonus if Elon Musk completed his purchase of Twitter, and moved the HQ to Texas as some have suggested. Then Twitter would have to abide by Texas law, and restore the First Amendment. The use of state power would protect us, should Elon skeptics turn out to be correct. No more mollycoddling Big Tech!
Spot on!