Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) got a Facebook executive to admit during testimony that the platform censored speech because officials on the left asked them to, and where is the outrage by media figures or . . . anyone?
Essentially, as Not the Bee pointed out, Facebook parent Meta is “acting as an enforcement arm” of the federal government, “censoring constitutionally protected speech.”
Senator @HawleyMO Grills Facebook Executive And Gets Him To Admit That They Have Coordinated With The Biden Administration To Censor Constitutionally Protected Speech pic.twitter.com/fKluq9z7FG
— The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 (@ColumbiaBugle) September 15, 2022
Meta Executive Chris Cox passed off Meta’s actions, saying that people “expected and hoped, from the platforms, that we would help them get accurate information about Covid during the unprecedented time, especially at the beginning.”
Inaccurate information
The problem is that the information Facebook censored did not all turn out to be incorrect. The science around how to handle COVID is far from set, and has changed significantly even as recently as weeks ago.
Instead of allowing free speech and letting people decide what they should believe and do, Facebook showed that it believed people need to be spoonfed limited information, and put its trust in the government rather than constitutional freedom.
That was a big mistake, and it led to actual misinformation when the government kept changing its official guidelines and mandates.
Masks were disavowed, then required. Same thing with vaccines, which were alternately run down and trumpeted depending on who was president to get the credit.
Wrong and Dangerous
It is likely going to come out later that the government got a lot wrong with both masks and vaccines, both of which mistakes likely killed many people.
It is wrong and dangerous for the government to use big tech platforms to censor individuals and groups.
It is wrong because it goes directly against the First Amendment, and it is dangerous because it gives the government too much power and circumvents the democratic process.
If the right does not find a way to stop this abuse of the American people, democracy will fall further and the country will have to contend with a further loss of its freedom.