At the request of Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), the three major tech platforms – Facebook, Google and Twitter – will now be censoring all posts and content that questions the safety and effectiveness of the almighty face mask.
A full-fledged believer in the power of face masks to cure the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), Duckworth wants Big Tech to “counter domestic disinformation that spreads the dangerous lies such as ‘masks don’t work’” by preventing it from being shared online.
In other words, face masks are so safe and effective, according to Duckworth, that people cannot be allowed to express any free speech to the contrary because it might deter people from putting their faith in the religion of COVID-19.
Duckworth's attack on the First Amendment comes as Silicon Valley faces yet another meaningless grilling from Congress over the immunity protections it still maintains under Section 230 of the antiquated Communications Decency Act (CDA).
Congress continues to pretend as though it will eventually do something to curb Big Tech from infringing people's rights, but so far it has been all talk and no action, also known as business as usual, from the political overlords.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Ill.) put on a lively show, however, as he sparred with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey concerning the platform's unfair treatment of conservatives. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) also joined in on the fun by yelling at Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
“Who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?” Cruz bellowed during the virtual hearing over Zoom.
“We don’t have a general policy around misleading information and misinformation,” Dorsey responded. “We rely upon people calling that speech out.”
In other words, Twitter does not actually have a standardized set of rules for what it censors, but rather relies on mob rule to make censorship decisions.
Is it really realistic to expect that Congress will ever put an end to Big Tech censorship?
President Donald Trump is also riling up his base about the topic by tweeting about it, ironically. Trump wrote in an Oct. 28 tweet that the media and Big Tech “are not covering Biden Corruption.
Trump added that the United States no longer has “Freedom of the Press,” but rather “Suppression of the Story, or just plain Fake News.”
“So much has been learned in the last two weeks about how corrupt our Media is, and now Big Tech, maybe [sic] even worse. Repeal Section 230!”
Again, we will believe it when we see it because this has been getting talked about for years by Republicans, which have collectively and individually done a whole lot of nothing to punish the tech giants for violating the First Amendment.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) did recently file an antitrust lawsuit against Google, however, the subject of that suit is monopolistic, anticompetitive behavior as opposed to censorship.
When asked during the hearing if he plans to censor content on Facebook post-election that encourages violence, Mark Zuckerberg made the claim that “there are no exceptions” to its censorship rules, even if politicians break them.
“The three witnesses we have before this committee collectively pose, I believe, the single greatest threat to free speech in America and the greatest threat we have to free and fair elections,” Cruz went on to declare during the circus event.
Dorsey reluctantly responded to Cruz’s statements by suggesting that Twitter does “need to earn more trust” from the public, adding that “more accountability is needed” to create the illusion that Twitter supports free speech.
More related news about the scourge of Big Tech censorship and the elimination of the First Amendment in America, be sure to check out Censorship.news.
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