DOJ targets Big Tech censorship, election meddling and racketeering
Lance D Johnson
Big Tech has repeatedly abused Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, an organized loophole that permitted companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google to manipulate swaths of people through censorship and election meddling. Now the Department of Justice (DOJ) is cracking down on Big Tech’s legal immunity and forcing these companies to answer for politically-motivated censorship and other unlawful conduct on their platforms. The proposal is being sent to Congress. The new rules would make Big Tech companies liable if they fail to clarify their content moderation practices and refuse to enforce them consistently. The new DOJ proposal goes a step further and strips the companies of legal immunity if they allow terrorism, cyber-stalking, sexual abuse or child exploitation.
Big Tech must lose their carte blanche censorship powers
Facebook, Twitter and the other Big Tech platforms are being represented by The Internet Association (IA), The IA opposes the DOJ’s new rules and said the threat of litigation would threaten the current community guidelines put forth by the technology companies.
Of course, it would. Every voice that has been censored from the public conversation deserves a right to be heard and deserves to legal representation and compensation for having their livelihood suppressed. Big tech has repeatedly aligned with foreign governing bodies, multinational corporations and left-leaning organizations to hold conservatives, libertarians and independents down. The DOJ’s new proposal holds these companies accountable for their discriminatory practices.
White House spokesman Judd Deere said that this issue goes much deeper than online censorship and free speech. Deere says consumers should be protected from censorship and discrimination and be informed that they have rights and resources to fight back under the law. Attorney generals from every state are on the front line of this issue and the President is listening to all perspectives regarding the matter at hand.
The censorship is out of control. Right now, Facebook and Twitter are censoring front line doctors who are having treatment successes for covid-19. Facebook is censoring information related to criminal activity and arson attacks in the West. Google is suppressing conservative news sites, pushing them further down search results. Big Tech is censoring whistle blowers who have evidence that covid-19 was created in a lab in China. This is just the beginning.
“Objectionable content” to be defined by new Section 230 reforms
Social media companies have repeatedly removed content, pages and profiles that they object to using biased employee teams and politically-motivated algorithms. The companies hide behind a clause in Section 230 that allows them to censor at will as long the content is “otherwise objectionable.”
Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn introduced the Online Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity Act to remove the “otherwise objectionable” clause from Section 230. Senator Blackburn is one of the high-profile people who has been repeatedly censored by Big Tech and hopes to restore the right of free speech to her fellow Americans. The Section 230 reform will allow diverse viewpoints on big tech platforms to restore American democracy, while holding companies like Facebook accountable when they try to shut down diverse viewpoints and dissent. The reform of Section 230 provides concrete examples of objectionable content, which includes anything that promotes unlawful activity, terrorism or self harm.
“The framework is in place, the procedure for updating it already learned by rote,” Blackburn wrote in the Washington Examiner: “If Congress refuses to update these standards in a way that proves we understand the internet we have, and the potential of what’s to come, we do so at the peril of free thought.”
For more on the fight against censorship, visit BigTech.news.
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