Without freedom of speech, we become China, North Korea or Venezuela

AlwaysWrite

Addicted Member
The First Amendment is widely considered the most important of all our constitutional protections. And for good reason.

Without freedom of speech, we become China, the Soviet Union, Venezuela or North Korea. We should all share a deep concern about the growing attempt to silence conservative voices, and this dangerous movement must be strongly opposed. The following is the text of an item by the Wall Street Journal's executive board.


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The Censorship Party

The Editorial Board

Imagine if a pair of Donald Trump’s allies in Congress had sent a letter to cable company CEOs in 2017 blasting CNN and other progressive media outlets and asking why their content is still broadcast. Then imagine that a GOP-run committee in Congress staged a hearing on the societal menace of fake news and the need for government and business to rein in the hostile press.

The media would have treated that as a five-alarm political fire, an existential threat to a free press, the First Amendment and political norms, and a step toward authoritarian rule. “Democracy dies in darkness,” and all that. Yet that’s exactly what Democrats in Congress did this week, targeting conservative media outlets, but the media reaction has been silence or approval.

On Monday Democrats Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney sent letters pressing 12 cable and tech CEOs to drop contracts with right-of-center media outlets including Fox News. Two days later the Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing about “disinformation and extremism” in conservative media. The only notable extremism on display was the majority party’s appetite for regulating and policing the free press.

Rep. Mike Doyle, chair of the subcommittee on communications and technology, declared in opening remarks that “it is the responsibility of this subcommittee to hold these institutions”—meaning press outlets he doesn’t like—“to a higher standard.” He said later that “more free speech just isn’t winning the day over the kind of speech that we’re concerned about.”

Democrats chose witnesses to lay the rhetorical foundation for press restrictions. One was Kristin Urquiza, whose father died of coronavirus and who spoke at the Democratic convention against Donald Trump. She said “the media didn’t pull the trigger” in her father’s death, “but they drove the getaway car,” because he watched and listened to news that downplayed the virus.

Rep. Eshoo bristled at Republican concerns about government officials investigating broadcast media with the aim of deplatforming disfavored networks. “I call them lies,” she said of the content described by Ms. Urquiza. “I don’t know what you call them. You call that the open market, something that’s competitive?” Rep. Marc Veasey said he saw a tension between “the freedom of speech versus other peoples’ safety.”

Chairman Rep. Frank Pallone generously conceded that the First Amendment protects speech that is “controversial” but distinguished “misinformation that causes public harm.” Apparently Mr. Pallone wants someone, perhaps the government, to determine what constitutes public harm and when speech causes it. Would two years of false Democratic narratives about Russian collusion with Mr. Trump qualify as public harm? How about apologias for riots in the streets last summer?

Progressives seem to believe that they are in a position to dictate the terms of what is acceptable speech in a more controlled media environment. As committee witness Emily Bell of Columbia Journalism School put it, “there has to be a will among the political elite and the media elite and the technology elite to actually do the right thing, as it were.” That means tightening speech restrictions. To borrow another progressive cliche, this is a dog whistle for tech companies and other businesses to censor or block conservatives if government can’t.

This thinking is dangerous at any time, but especially so now as the Democratic Party runs both Congress and the executive branch with the power to punish companies that don’t oblige. The danger is worse since most of the media are abdicating their role as defenders of the free press because they aren’t the political targets. The First Amendment dies in media darkness.
 

Greg T.

The Jizz Slinger
And social media platforms such as FB, You tube, Instagram and others are playing right into their hands. Can't even count how many times I've been in FB jail because my posts have been declared "harmful" or "Hate speech". I've often stated that I'm glad I'm old.
 

AlwaysWrite

Addicted Member
And social media platforms such as FB, You tube, Instagram and others are playing right into their hands. Can't even count how many times I've been in FB jail because my posts have been declared "harmful" or "Hate speech". I've often stated that I'm glad I'm old.
Dear Greg T:

Somehow, I've never been "sent to jail" by Facebook, even though I espouse many viewpoints similar to yours. Perhaps it's because -- as a long-time journalist and wordsmith -- I say things with careful wording and avoidance of in-your-face tactics for the most part.
 

Greg T.

The Jizz Slinger
Dear Greg T:

Somehow, I've never been "sent to jail" by Facebook, even though I espouse many viewpoints similar to yours. Perhaps it's because -- as a long-time journalist and wordsmith -- I say things with careful wording and avoidance of in-your-face tactics for the most part.
Maybe. FB works on the same rules that liberals despise. They hate profiling. Yet, when FB detects a bit of info or text that they deem to be offensive the account is flagged. Running with their algorithms, that account is now on the top of their target list. I have found MANY posts that I have shared and find it hilarious how they will allow the OP and yet ban ME because I shared it. It's not rocket surgery. My account is being watched while others are not. BUT, once that other account is flagged for violations it, too, will become a target.
 

WAMO

Spanking His Monkey
Dear Greg T:

Somehow, I've never been "sent to jail" by Facebook, even though I espouse many viewpoints similar to yours. Perhaps it's because -- as a long-time journalist and wordsmith -- I say things with careful wording and avoidance of in-your-face tactics for the most part.

THIS 1 STATEMENT INDICATES THAT YOU SAY THE SAME THINGS ABOUT ME THAT I SAY ABOUT YOU. YOU JUST INDICATE YOU USE MORE TACT THAN I BECAUSE YOUR A WORDSMITH.

THAT STATEMENT, BECAUSE YOU SAY YOU ARE A WORDSMITH, WOULD INDICATE GREG IS FAR INFERIOR TO YOUR INTELLEGENCE BECAUSE YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN TO FB JAIL BUT HE HAS FOR SAYING THE SAME THING JUST WORDING IT IN A WORDSMITHERY WAY. SOUNDS LIKE YOUR RUBBING GREGS NOSE IN IT.
 
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