U.S. policymakers have struggled to agree on the rules of engagement with social media platforms, especially regarding violent, threatening or otherwise dangerous content. In the wake of recent events — namely the COVID-19 pandemic and the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, both of which were amplified by online dis- and mis-information — some have also argued for the need for government and social media companies to communicate on basic facts regarding elections and public health.
Straight Arrow News contributor Ben Weingarten examines the relationship between public policy and private social media platforms and argues that governments are effectively pressuring social media companies to favor or censor certain content, alleging “a mass censorship conspiracy.”
While the world awaits the Supreme Court’s ruling on the preeminent censorship case of the digital era, Murthy v. Missouri, the censorship industrial complex is not sitting idly by. In fact, it’s striking back at those who would dare challenge it. Globally, we’ve seen the efforts of the Brazilian and Australian governments to bring X to heel for platforming people and content that the leaders of those countries disapprove of, in Australia’s case to ban content not just in Australia, but everywhere.
And we can easily see how these global efforts to impose speech controls in the name of combating hate speech for public safety could be used to launder censorship practices that could ensnare American speech.
Domestically, it seems clear the censorship regime is mobilizing to attack its American critics in a bid to protect itself. For months, there has been a press offensive to frame the very people who recast dissenting views on hotly contested political matters concerning election integrity, COVID policy, and a slew of other issues as threats to public health, safety and democracy, and successfully purge many such views and people from the digital public square as mere passive academic researchers and observers, rather than key participants in a mass censorship conspiracy.