A WIN for freedom of speech? Federal judge says the Biden administration may have violated the First Amendment during the pandemic



Finally somebody has brought to light what many of us have known for a long time.

The unapologetic censorship that took place on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook during the COVID-19 pandemic is now being flagged as unconstitutional.

Why it took this long, we may never know.

Regardless, Terry Dottie, a federal judge in Louisiana, “blocked officials and agencies in the Biden administration from communicating with social media companies — think Facebook, Google, Twitter — about the topic of protected speech,” David Spunt of Fox News reports.

“What this judge just did with this temporary injunction is fantastic,” Rubin says.

“We know that the CIA, the FBI, the intelligence agencies ... were working with tech companies” during the pandemic.

“We now know through the 'Twitter Files' that there were eight government agents literally working at Twitter ... God only knows how many of them work at Facebook and YouTube,” he continues.

“Once a government agent is doing something with a big tech organization to censor you or to imply censorship,” your constitutional right to free speech has been violated, Rubin explains.

But again, many of us have known this for a long time. However, the fact that something is finally being done about it is certainly worth celebrating.

Watch the full clip here.


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Top Republican condemns Big Tech CEOs for censorship and exploiting children



The top Republican on the House Energy & Commerce Committee tore into three Big Tech CEOs testifying before the committee Thursday, accusing their companies of exploiting and profiting from children.

Committee ranking member Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), in her passionate opening statement, accused Big Tech platforms of failing to keep their promise to help people connect and build relationships.

"You have broken my trust, yes, because you failed to promote the battle of ideas and free speech," she told the CEOs of Google, Facebook, and Twitter. "Yes, because you censor political viewpoints you disagree with. Those polarizing actions matter for democracy.

"But do you know what convinced me Big Tech is a destructive force?" McMorris Rodgers continued. "It's how you've abused your power to manipulate and harm our children. Your platforms are my biggest fear as a parent."

A working mother of three children, McMorris Rodgers is outspoken on issues of child exploitation on the internet, the dangers posed to teen mental health from overexposure to social media, and the responsibility Big Tech to combat child grooming and trafficking.

In January, McMorris-Rodgers released what she calls the "Big Tech Accountability Platform," a Republican Party statement of principles and legislative priorities for regulating tech companies.

"I'm a mom of three school-aged kids. My husband and I are fighting the Big Tech battles in our household every day," she said. "The battle for their development. A battle for their mental health. And ultimately, a battle for their safety. I've monitored their algorithms, I've monitored where your algorithms lead them. It's frightening."

The congresswoman raised concerns about social media's demonstrated harmful effect on children, mentioning studies that show increased rates of depression, self-harm, suicides, and suicide attempts for youth that are overexposed to social media platforms. She also related stories shared with her by constituents of kids harming themselves, or falling prey to child predators interacting with them over the internet.

"Our kids — the users — are the product. You — Big Tech — are not advocates for children," she said. "You exploit and profit off of them. Big Tech needs to be exposed and completely transparent for what you are doing to our children so parents like me can make informed decisions. We also expect Big Tech to do more to protect children because you haven't done enough. Big Tech has failed to be good stewards of your platforms."

Visibly angry, the lawmaker concluded with a personal ultimatum to Big Tech companies:

I have two daughters and a son with a disability. Let me be clear, I do not want you defining what is true for them. I do not want their future manipulated by your algorithms. I do not want their self-worth defined by the engagement tools you built to attract their attention. I do not want them to be in danger from what you've created. I do not want their emotions and vulnerabilities taken advantage of so you can make more money and have more power.

Over 20 years ago, before we knew what Big Tech would become, Congress gave you liability protections. I want to know, why do you think you still deserve those protections today?

What will it take for your business model to stop harming children?

Mike Lee demands apology from Sen. Dianne Feinstein for implying Trump tweets inspire violence



Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) on Wednesday called on his colleague Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to recant a statement implying President Donald Trump's tweets incite violence and apologize.

Feinstein's remarks were made Tuesday during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with the CEOs of Facebook and Twitter. During her time to speak, Feinstein raised concerns about Trump's claims that he won the election, asking if Twitter's warning label on Trump's tweets "do enough to prevent the tweet's harms." She also referred to the Nov. 5 arrest of two armed men by Philadelphia police near the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where ballots were being counted.

"I'm really struck by it, that people armed with assault weapons as a product of a tweet could rally outside an election office," Feinstein said. "And I think it's really a serious issue that needs to be considered and there need to be, once you signal that and people respond to it, it has to be in some way abated or some way pointed out or restructured on the internet itself."

At the hearing, Lee responded to Feinstein, pointing out that "the only violence I'm aware of has occurred in connection with Antifa, Antifa's response to pro-Trump peaceful rally attenders."

Appearing on Fox News' "Fox & Friends" Wednesday, Lee called on Feinstein to recant her remarks.

"You had Washington, D.C., full to overflowing with peaceful Trump protesters, people protesting or signaling their support for President Trump and showing gratitude for them. Not one act of violence was attributed to them," Lee said. "Meanwhile, you had people shooting industrial strength fireworks into places where they were eating. You had people approaching and beating up and saying vile things and putting people in physical danger, including elderly people, including women and children. All of this was done by Trump-haters, by Antifa people who couldn't handle the fact that there were people peacefully showing their support for President Trump."

"So I don't know what my colleague Sen. Feinstein is talking about, but I thought that was an inappropriate comment," he continued. "Not one act of violence has been linked to President Trump in connection with events surrounding this election and I think she needs to recant her statement and apologize."

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey faced questions from lawmakers Tuesday on censorship of social media posts challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election and suppression of conservatives and Trump supporters leading up to the election. Republicans generally demanded answers on whether social media companies were publishers or platforms and how they should be regulated while Democrats raised concerns about the spread of misinformation on social media and wanted to know what Facebook and Twitter were doing to stop President Trump from tweeting statements they say are inaccurate or false.

After the hearing concluded, Lee told Fox News that Congress is headed for "a major overhaul" of the legal protections social media companies enjoy under Section 230 of the Telecommunications Decency Act.

"No matter what, they're now headed for a major overhaul of Section 230 of the Telecommunications Decency Act. It is going to subject them perhaps to some liability, there could be other changes that take them outside of the 230 protection if they don't stop providing misinformation, if they don't stop lying to their own customers," Lee said.

Lee added that Facebook and Twitter could be "subject to aggressive action by Federal Trade Commission" under current law "because they've engaged in an unfair and deceptive trade practice."

"Yesterday they made very clear that they've lied to their own customers, they've lied to the American people, they've coordinated with other people on the left in order to punish the right and make sure that the left wins. This isn't fair, especially when they speak in terms that make them sound like they're some sort of state-sponsored media. They're speaking with an air of officialdom in this and that's not right, the American people aren't going to stand for it."

Republicans put Facebook and Twitter to the question on censorship and the future of social media



Senate Republicans grilled the heads of Facebook and Twitter at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on big tech censorship in the 2020 presidential election Tuesday, calling into question the tech companies' content moderation policies and threatening government action to end perceived bias against right-leaning points of view on their platforms.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey faced questions on their content moderation enforcement, on examples of apparent bias against President Donald Trump's supporters and conservatives, and what the role of government should be in regulating social media platforms. Republicans came prepared with specific examples of censorship, asking about the suppression of the New York Post's Hunter Biden reports, about social media posts challenging the official results of the presidential election being flagged as misinformation, and more.

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Facebook and Twitter's content moderation enforcement has convinced him to reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a federal law that protects internet companies from being liable for content posted on their platforms by third parties.

Citing the suppression of the New York Post's articles, Graham accused Twitter and Facebook of exerting "editorial control" over the paper.

"What I want to try to find out is, if you're not a newspaper at Twitter or Facebook, then why do you have editorial control over the New York Post?" Graham said during his opening statement.

"They decided, and maybe for a good reason, I don't know, that the New York Post articles about Hunter Biden needed to be flagged, excluded from distribution or made hard to find. That to me seems like you're the ultimate editor," Graham continued.

"The editorial decision at the New York Post to run the story was overridden by Twitter and Facebook in different fashions to prevent its dissemination. Now if that's not making an editorial decision, I don't know what would be."

Whether Facebook and Twitter make editorial decisions by moderating content on their platforms is crucial to the debate on how government should regulate big tech. If these social media companies are providing platforms for people to use, then they are protected under Section 230 and they can't be sued, for example, for slanderous content posted by a third party that appears on their website. However, if they are making editorial decisions about the content they host on their websites, then Republicans argue they are behaving like publishers and as such would not be protected by Section 230.

Questions for Dorsey from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) focused directly on this distinction, citing Twitter's misinformation label on tweets about voter fraud as an example of an editorial action that would suggest Twitter is behaving like a publisher.

Cruz asked Dorsey directly, "Is Twitter a publisher?"

"No, we are not, we distribute information," Dorsey replied.

Reading from Section 230, Cruz defined a publisher as "any person or entity that is responsible in whole or in part for the creation or development of information provided through the internet or any other interactive computer service," then asked Dorsey if Twitter acted as a publisher by censoring the New York Post.

Again, Dorsey said Twitter is not a publisher but that it has policies and terms of service that users agree to abide by with enforcement action taken against users who violate the agreement. But Cruz accused Twitter of applying its policies "in a partisan and selective manner," criticizing Twitter for enforcing its "hacked materials" policy against the New York Post but neglecting to do so against other news outlets that reported news obtained from "hacked materials."

Continuing, Cruz said Twitter has a "star-chamber power" over speech on its platform and accused the company of making "publishing decisions" by putting warnings on statements about voter fraud that state, "Voter fraud of any kind is exceedingly rare in the United States."

"That's taking a disputed policy position, and you're a publisher when you're doing that," Cruz charged.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) also raised concerns about what he called Twitter and Facebook's "distinctly partisan approach" to moderating content on their websites. Citing about an incident in October when Twitter locked U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan's account, flagging as hate speech a seemingly benign tweet about how new wall on the southern border "helps us stop gang members, murderers, sexual predators, and drugs from entering our country," Lee asked why the tweet was censored.

"We evaluated his tweet and we found that we were wrong. … That was a mistake; we reverted it," Dorsey explained. But Lee expected this answer.

"What we're going to see today is that mistakes happen a whole lot more, almost entirely on one side of the political aisle rather than the other," he said before turning to Zuckerberg and asking why Facebook "stunningly" took almost two weeks to unblock an advertisement from the Susan B. Anthony List that a third-party fact-checker mistakenly said was "partly false."

"I'm not familiar with the details of us re-enabling that ad ... it's possible that this was just a mistake or a delay," Zuckerberg said.

"I appreciate your acknowledgement of that the fact that there are mistakes. As I noted previously, those mistake sure happen a whole lot more on one side of the political spectrum than the other," Lee said. Noting that more than 90% of employees at both Twitter and Facebook donated to Democratic candidates, Lee wondered aloud if those political biases affect the apparent one-sided nature of big tech's "mistakes."

Sen. Mike Lee calls out tech CEOs for “very distinctively partisan approach” in censoring https://t.co/fOE0Ovo3WV
— Steve Guest (@Steve Guest)1605633174.0

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) picked up this line of questioning, inquiring about the political leanings of Facebook and Twitter employees and asking if it's possible there's "systemic bias" within these companies.

"I do think it's undisputed that our employee base, at least the full-time folks, politically would be somewhat or maybe more than just a little somewhat to the left of where our overall community is," Zuckerberg said, acknowledging that his company likely leans farther left than the average American Facebook user.

Zuckerberg did point out that it employs 35,000 content moderators in locations around the nation, not just in Silicon Valley, and that it would be incorrect to assume that they all are biased against Republicans.

Dorsey said political biases are not something his company would "interview for" before acknowledging that most people perceive that his company leans left and judge Twitter's intentions based on that perception.

"If people don't trust our intent, if people are questioning that, that's a failure and that is something we need to fix and intend to fix," Dorsey said.

Sasse did break with his colleagues and express skepticism about having the federal government take action to regulate social media in response to bias.

"I especially think it's odd that so many in my party are zealous to do this right now when you would have an incoming administration of the other party that would be writing the rules and regulations about it," he said.

His final question inquired about where Zuckerberg and Dorsey see the future of content moderation going over the next three or five years if the government does not act.

Zuckerberg said Facebook will increase its focus on transparency. He said Facebook has "already committed to an independent external audit" of its content moderation enforcement metrics and suggested that such a review could be part of a government regulatory framework created by Congress.

Dorsey said that a "centralized global content moderation system does not scale" and said tech companies need to "rethink" how they operate content moderation. He suggested a decentralized approach that gives users more choice about how they interact on social media.

"Having more control so that individuals can moderate themselves, pushing the power of moderation to the edges and to our customers, and to the individuals using the service is something we'll see more of," Dorsey said. "Having more choice around how algorithms are altering my experience and creating my experience is important."