Tag Archives: free speech

Not Too Circular….

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During last Wednesday’s House Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing regarding the Federal government’s collusion with social media, social media powdered wigs were asked whether they had used disappearing message apps to talk with government officials.

Twitter’s ex-Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gaddee’s response:

Not to the best of my records.

Which, of course, her records would not indicate, her messages with government officials (like another “witness” in front of the committee, then-FBI General Counsel James Baker) having disappeared via those apps.

Incidentally, Baker, in front of the Committee in his role as ex-Twitter Deputy General Counsel, claimed I don’t recall whether he had used disappearing message apps.

Go figure.

In Which I Disagree with the Congresswoman

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Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R, SC) has come out in opposition of the move to bar Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D, MN) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

I think we have to be very careful about what we are as a constitutional republic. I am not a fan of Ilhan Omar. She’s an anti-Semite. She’s a bigot. She’s a racist. She’s a socialist. But that doesn’t mean that we cancel people in this country. Republicans don’t stand for cancel culture. And that’s essentially what this is.

And

I think it sets a very dangerous precedent. And you know, there’s so much anti-Semitism in this country. We should be condemning it right and left as we always have, but there’s also the First Amendment right to do that[.]

Mace is correct that we’re a constitutional republic with a First Amendment right for all Americans to speak their piece, whatever that piece might be.

However.

Omar wouldn’t be barred from all House committees, any more than Congressmen Adam Schiff (D, CA) and Eric Swalwell (D, CA) are barred from all House committees. They’re barred only from the House Intelligence Committee; they’re free to serve on other House committees.

Omar would be barred only from the Foreign Affairs Committee and remain free to serve on other House committees. Omar’s rank bigotry makes her presence on Foreign Affairs counterproductive; her presence would give the lie to our nation’s international efforts to counter bigotry.

Our First Amendment free speech rights are limited in certain narrow circumstances. Military members cannot speak counter to military policy while in uniform or in other situations where they can be understood to be speaking for the military or for their branch or for their particular unit. They can be subject to discipline if they do. They can speak as freely as they wish on whatever subject they wish when they’re speaking as private citizens.

When Omar espoused her bigotry, she too often spoke as a Congresswoman, not as a private citizen. It would be entirely correct to bar her from Foreign Affairs; it would be cancel culture only were she barred from all House committees.

Facebook Collusion?

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According to the latest installment of Email Revelations, Facebook—i.e., Mark Zuckerberg, since he owns an outright majority of the voting shares of his Facebook (and its reincarnation, Meta)—responded to pressure from the White House (which can only mean President Joe Biden (D), since he’s the White House guy in charge) rather meekly (IMNSHO).

Facebook told an official at the Biden White House in March 2021 that the Big Tech company took action against the “virality” of “often-true content” regarding the COVID-19 vaccines, in addition to suppressed misinformation about the shots.

Zuckerberg, via his (identity redacted) staffer:

As you know, in addition to removing vaccine misinformation, we have been focused on reducing the virality of content discouraging vaccines that does not contain actionable information. This is often-true content, which we allow at the post level because it is important for people to be able to discuss both their personal experiences and concerns about the vaccine, but it can be framed as sensation, alarmist, or shocking.

Can be framed as…. By whom, exactly? Apparently by Zuckerberg and his minions.

Is Zuckerberg an abject coward, then, caving to unenforceable “pressure,” or is he all-in with the Progressive-Democrats and their demand to control speech?

I write, you decide.

Go Figure

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The Republican-led House of Representatives is setting up a select committee to investigate Biden administration pressure on and collusion with (yes, both) Big Tech to suppress or outright censor speech of which Biden-ites disapproved, a suppression/censorship that primarily affected Republicans and Conservatives.

President Joe Biden (D) demurs.

“House Republicans continue to focus on launching partisan political stunts,” said spokesman Ian Sams, “instead of joining the president to tackle the issues the American people care about most like inflation.”

Yet when the Progressive-Democratic Party Congressmen “investigated” the Trump administration and former President Donald Trump (R) himself throughout his four years in office, that was all on the up-and-up.

Go figure.

More Censorship

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Meta, the owner of Facebook, is expanding its censorship practice.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, said Monday that they will be taking down posts that support the raids of Brazilian government buildings by supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro.

And it was preplanned:

“In advance of the election, we designated Brazil as a temporary high-risk location and have been removing content calling for people to take up arms or forcibly invade Congress, the Presidential palace and other federal buildings,” a spokesperson for Meta said in a statement reported by Reuters.
“We are also designating this as a violating event, which means we will remove content that supports or praises these actions,” the statement continued. “We are actively following the situation and will continue removing content that violates our policies.

All because Mark Zuckerberg disapproves of opinions different from his own. And he’s proud of his censorship.

The correct answer to distasteful, even despicable, rhetoric—Facebook posts or otherwise—is answering rhetoric that makes the differing case. Merely censoring, deleting, canceling rhetoric is either laziness or cowardice. Or both.