Ever since 2016, when
Britain’s Brexit vote and Trump’s election went against the desires of the
political/media/intellectual elites, pressure
has been high on social media
companies to “regulate”—i.e. censor—speech on their platforms, particularly
political speech. Recently, my interest in this is even more militant because
of a great book by Nadine Strossen I’m currently reading, HATE:
Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship (Inalienable Rights).
As the 2020 U.S.
presidential election year gets underway, Google and Twitter have succumbed to
the pressure. But Facebook is resisting in no uncertain terms. As the New York
Times reports in Facebook
Again Refuses to Ban Political Ads, Even False Ones:
Despite escalating pressure ahead of the 2020 presidential
election, Facebook reaffirmed its freewheeling policy on political ads
Thursday, saying it won’t ban them, won’t fact-check them and won’t limit how
they can be targeted to specific groups of people.
The company said it was guided by the principle that “people
should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all, and
that what they say should be scrutinized and debated in public.”
The thing that concerns me is not as much that
private companies might limit or regulate political ads, which would be bad but
their right. The thing that concerns me is politicians using legal or
regulatory extortion (threats) to coerce companies into banning or limiting
ideas the politicians don’t approve of under vague and nonsensical yet
dangerous rationalizations like “that social media is warping democracy and
undermining elections.” It’s hard for politicians in the United States to
censor outright, thanks to the First Amendment. But censorship-by-proxies is a
real concern. See my post The
Banning of Alex Jones: Facebook Choice or Regulatory Extortion?.
Facebook is no
completely innocent. It has called for federal regulations and rules to govern
political advertising, saying private companies should not be the ones to do
it.
But for now, kudos to
Facebook for standing up to the political/media/intellectual elites who want to
enforce silence and shred the rights of we the citizens to hear, analyze,
fact-check, and decide for ourselves what is true, false, or misleading in the upcoming
political campaigns.
Related Reading:
HATE:
Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship (Inalienable Rights)--Nadine Strossen
2 comments:
It's 'funny' how Facebook can go by the principle it states, and then say there should be rules and regulations about political advertising, issued by government.
When politicians holding elected office pressure social media to allow this or not allow that on their platforms by means of threats and coercion, that's censorship just as much as censoring outright.
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