University professors push Biden to create ‘misinformation commission’ to counter right-wing 'lies'



A pair of university professors are urging Democratic President-elect Joe Biden to create a presidential "misinformation commission" to counter the spread of right-wing "lies."

In an opinion piece published by the Hill on Tuesday, professors Bill Adair and Philip Napoli, both of whom are public policy instructors at Duke University, argued that the recent storming of the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters proves the need for a government panel to decide what speech ought to be permitted.

"Last week's attack on the U.S. Capitol was based on lies," they wrote, adding: "The mob that stormed the building was acting on a tidal wave of misinformation about the election that was spread by the president, his fellow Republicans and their supporters using a web of partisan media outlets, social media and the dark corners of the internet."

"The lies flourished despite an extraordinary amount of debunking by fact-checkers and Washington journalists. But that fact-checking didn't persuade the mob that stormed the Capitol — nor did it dissuade millions of other supporters of the president. Fed a steady diet of repetitive falsehoods by elected officials and partisan outlets, they believed the lies so much that they were driven to violence," they continued.

In the op-ed, Adair, who is the founding editor of the well-known fact-checking website PolitiFact, admitted that recent attempts to censor speech have failed, writing, "For the past four years, academics and journalists and philanthropists and foundations and tech leaders" have thrown hundreds of millions of dollars at the problem to no avail.

Yet despite its obvious failure, the authors insist that censorship deserves another try, and this time the government itself should be directly involved.

"In his first week in office, President-elect Biden should announce a bipartisan commission to investigate the problem of misinformation and make recommendations about how to address it," they suggest. "The commission should take a broad approach and consider all possible solutions: incentives, voluntary industry reforms, education, regulations and new laws."

They add that Biden has a unique opportunity to "seize the moment" given the fertility of the landscape now that Democrats are in power and Republican Party has been "weakened."

It's worth asking: Have the authors considered that when progressive societal leaders dictate to people what is true and what is not, it may actually serve only to make people more skeptical?

Nevertheless, the call is only the latest attempt at censorship in the aftermath of the Capitol siege. In the days following the incident, Big Tech swung into action by banning Trump from every major social media platform, businesses pulled support from Republican lawmakers who objected to certifying the election — and many conservatives fear that this is only the beginning.

Report: President Trump will fight Big Tech's censorship of conservatives in final days of presidency



President Trump is planning to fight against Big Tech's censorship of conservatives during his final days in office, a White House adviser reportedly told CNN on Sunday.

The adviser allegedly told the news outlet that the president plans to use "his permanent suspension from Twitter as an opportunity to shift the narrative away from the insurrection on Capitol Hill earlier in the week," instead spotlighting the left's attempts to censor conservative ideas and voices.

"This isn't just about President Trump, but this is literally about the 75 million Americans [who supported him]," the adviser claimed.

Last Friday — after supporters of the president stormed the U.S. Capitol while Congress was in session — Twitter announced that Trump would never again be permitted a voice on the platform "due to the risk of further incitement of violence." Facebook also took action to de-platform Trump "indefinitely," though the company refrained from instituting a permanent ban on the president, at least for now.

The actions provoked concern that Big Tech's censorship wouldn't stop with the president, but move on to affect conservatives at large. Furthering those concerns, tech giants Apple and Amazon have taken steps over the past several days to de-platform Parler, a conservative Twitter alternative, unless the free speech company implemented a content moderation plan.

Meanwhile, some conservative voices on Twitter have reported that the company has purged thousands of their followers in the wake of the Capitol riot. The loss of followers could be due to the company's removal of QAnon-linked accounts or users voluntarily removing themselves from the platform.

BlazeTV reporter Elijah Schaffer was investigated by CNN and temporarily suspended from Facebook and Instagram over his live reporting of the events inside the Capitol last Wednesday.

"Big Tech and Capitol Hill Democrats seem to have the magic ability to galvanize the Republican base in a way that only they know how to do," the adviser added in conversation with CNN.

In a surprising assessment of the recent Big Tech censorship of President Trump, even the American Civil Liberties Union, a group which normally fights conservative causes, expressed concern over the "unchecked power" of large social media companies.

"We understand the desire to permanently suspend him now, but it should concern everyone when companies like Facebook and Twitter wield the unchecked power to remove people from platforms that have become indispensable for the speech of billions — especially when political realities make those decisions easier," the organization said in a statement.

The report noted it remains to be seen what exactly the president will do — or even can do — at this late stage of his presidency. But it seems certain that in the coming months, calls to strip social media companies of their legal protections under Section 230, a move supported by the president, will likely increase.