From Joe Biden Is Trying to Impose Online Censorship by Proxy by Jacob Sullum for Reason. All emphasis are mine:
The administration’s public pressure campaign against COVID-19 "misinformation" cannot be reconciled with its avowed respect for freedom of expression.
President Joe Biden wants to suppress speech that discourages Americans from being vaccinated against COVID-19. Because the First Amendment does not allow him to do that, he is asking Facebook and other social media companies to do it for him.
“Asking!?!”
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 et al., the line between a request and a command is hazy, and so is the line between private content moderation and government censorship.
Psaki's assurances are hard to take seriously given the public pressure that the Biden administration is applying, its ability to launch litigation and support legislation that hurts social media companies, and its threat of "legal and regulatory measures." If those companies do what the president wants by cracking down on speech he does not like, they will be acting as the government's agents.
I've been warning about censorship-by-proxy for a long time. The politicians can't directly censor, because of the First Amendment. But they have a powerful backdoor weapon, the regulatory state. Politicians can "arm twist" companies into submission by threatening regulation, in particular antitrust enforcement. The antitrust "laws" are particularly powerful. They're not really laws. They are unAmerican statutes that grant government arbitrary power, the tool of authoritarianism. Antitrust gives politicians power to prosecute any business for anything, at any time, at will. It's Al Capone "politics," not law. And it's a powerful means of censorship-by-proxy. Given that politicians of both parties are already threatening social media companies with antitrust, how much choice do they have to resist political demand to censor their users?
This demonstrates the integral—and fragile—nature of rights. This case shows how economic controls are used to silence free speech. Intellectual freedom is not possible without economic freedom. Don't blame the social media companies. The dollar is no match for a bullet. Blame the government, and anyone who supports the regulatory/antitrust state.
Related Reading:
The Banning of Alex Jones: Facebook Choice or Regulatory Extortion?
Malinowski's Censorship-By-Proxy 'Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act' Advances
Facebook Backtracks on Free Speech Policy; Political Extortion?
Social Media and the Future of Civil Society by Jon Hersey for The Objective Standard
Americans Abandoning Free Speech Better Brace for the Consequences by J.D. Tuccille for Reason: Government will happily suppress misinformation in favor of misinformation of its own.
Dem Rep Malinowski Reprises Trump in Proposed Legislative Attack on Social Media and Free Speech.
A Conversation About Facebook, the First Amendment, Antitrust, and “The Electronic Octopus”
SCHOLARS WITH THUMBSCREWS: ANTITRUST’S PREDATORY ACADEMICS by Tom
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