Former President Barack Obama lowered the boom on social media for allowing what he sees as “the threat of false information online” to our society and democracy. As Ryan and Jullian Smith report in Former President Obama argues free speech doesn't apply to social media companies for ABC 6:
He delivered sharp remarks at Stanford University about the threat of false information online, calling for more transparency and regulations for Big Tech.
Obama spoke about the impact these issues have on society, including what the country saw during the 2020 election and anti-vaccine rhetoric during the pandemic.
“The First Amendment is a check on the power of the state. It doesn't apply to private companies like Facebook or Twitter any more than it applies to editorial decisions made by the New York Times or Fox News,” he said.
Despite the unfortunate wording of the title of the article, Obama seems to be saying here that the First Amendment is not a check on the private companies’ right to moderate what is said on their platforms, not that ”free speech doesn't apply to social media companies.” He’d be correct. It is crucial to recognize the bright line between government and private entities. Kudos to Obama for highlighting this vital point.
But he contradicts that principle when he calls for government regulation and Section 230 "reform" to reign in "misinformation", thus opening up a path for the government to make an end run around that bright line established by the First Amendment..
As Melissa de White, Taylor Kubota, and Ker Than report in ‘Regulation has to be part of the answer’ to combating online disinformation, Barack Obama said at Stanford event for Stanford News:
During a speech at Stanford University on Thursday, former U.S. President Barack Obama presented his audience with a stark choice: “Do we allow our democracy to wither, or do we make it better?”
The former president put forth various solutions for combating online disinformation, including regulation, which many tech companies fiercely oppose.
“Here in the United States, we have a long history of regulating new technologies in the name of public safety, from cars and airplanes to prescription drugs to appliances,” Obama said. “And while companies initially always complain that the rules are going to stifle innovation and destroy the industry, the truth is that a good regulatory environment usually ends up spurring innovation, because it raises the bar on safety and quality. And it turns out that innovation can meet that higher bar.”
In particular, Obama urged policymakers to rethink Section 230, enacted as part of the United States Communications Decency Act in 1996, which stipulates that generally, online platforms cannot be held liable for content that other people post on their website.
Obama did call for we, as private citizens, to take responsibility:
The responsibility also lies with ordinary citizens, the former president said. “We have to take it upon ourselves to become better consumers of news – looking at sources, thinking before we share, and teaching our kids to become critical thinkers who know how to evaluate sources and separate opinion from fact.”
But Obama should have stopped there. "Disinformation"/misinformation/fake news/false information”—choose your buzzword—is the opening for politicians and other government officials to squash ideas they don't like. How does smothering public debate and silencing dissent make our democracy better?
Short of certain very clearly delimited exceptions, such as instigating imminent violence or threats to public safety, any attempt by government to regulate speech of any kind, no matter how false or offensive it may be, violates the very “check on the power of the state” that Obama readily acknowledges the First Amendment is designed to erect. Regulation can easily serve as an end run around First Amendment protections. As Sen. Dianne Feinstein brazenly threatened in a Senate hearing for social media companies, “You created these platforms. And now they’re being misused. And you have to be the ones who do something about it. Or we will.”
‘Or we will!” That’s a direct threat. U.S. Representative Tom Malinowski of NJ, in calling for social media companies to reign in “Political extremism”, “white supremacy” and “domestic terrorism,” was even more direct: “And if they don’t do it voluntarily, we’re going to have to regulate them to death.” “Regulate them to death”! Let that sink in. These are the kinds of threats that can force private companies to ban, allow, or “moderate” speech and ideas according to politicians’ desires. It’s called censorship-by-proxy. It’s very dangerous. And it’s the kind of power that regulatory authority gives to politicians. And they don’t even have to pass regulations—just threaten them.
This, all in the name of fighting “political extremism”, “misinformation”, or whatever [fill in the blank] rationalization they can come up with. So much for the First Amendment’s “check on the power of the state”. So much for Obama’s defense of the First Amendment. And so much for free speech in America.
Related Reading:
Dem Rep Malinowski Reprises Trump in Proposed Legislative Attack on Social Media and Free Speech.
Malinowski's Censorship-By-Proxy 'Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act' Advances
Trump Joins Biden in War on the Average Person’s Newfound Power to be Heard
Politicians Want to Destroy Section 230, the Internet's First Amendment: Four myths about the law that made the modern internet possible. -- ELIZABETH NOLAN BROWN AND PAUL DETRICK for Reason
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