Establishment openly calls for censorship to maintain ‘control’
Democrat elites are openly calling for the censorship of Americans, which former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday said is necessary for “control.”
Clinton made the remarks on CNN’s “Smerconish” while discussing Section 230, a law that protects social media platforms from liability for content on their sites. Without Section 230, a social media company would be considered a “publisher” and could be held responsible for anything users say on the platform, leaving it open to volleys of lawsuits.
“We should be, in my view, repealing something called Section 230, which gave, you know, platforms on the internet immunity,” Clinton said. “Because they were thought to be just pass-throughs, that they shouldn’t be judged for the content that is posted.”
The failed Democratic presidential candidate then warned about a loss of control if social media platforms fail to “moderate content,” a euphemism for censorship.
“But we now know that that was an overly simple view, that if the platforms, whether it’s Facebook or Twitter, X, or Instagram or Tiktok, whatever they are, if they don’t moderate and monitor the content, we lose total control,” she continued.
On the other side of the aisle, "Many Republicans have suggested in recent years that Section 230 should be conditioned on platforms remaining politically neutral and open for free expression, to protect the free speech of users." Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas would like to "narrow the protections of Section 230" through the court system, without waiting for Congress to act.
John Kerry: First Amendment is a ‘major block’
Clinton’s comments came the week after John Kerry, Biden’s former climate czar, said the First Amendment is blocking efforts to stamp out “disinformation.”
“You know there’s a lot of discussion now about how you curb those entities in order to guarantee that you’re going to have some accountability on facts, etc.,” Kerry said at the World Economic Forum's Sustainable Development Impact Meetings (SDIM24). “But look, if people only go to one source, and the source they go to is sick, and, you know, has an agenda, and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence.”
“So what we need is to win the ground, win the right to govern, by hopefully winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to implement change,” he added.
Kerry’s remarks drew widespread criticism online.
“John Kerry is saying he wants to violate the Constitution,” billionaire Elon Musk commented. Robert F. Kennedy Jr said: “John Kerry is correct. The 1st Amendment DOES stand as a major roadblock to them right now.”
MSM: First Amendment is a ‘barrier’
Mainstream media have also been warning that free speech is a threat to democracy.
“[T]he First Amendment has become, for better or worse, a barrier to virtually any government efforts to stifle a problem that, in the case of a pandemic, threatens public health and, in the case of the integrity of elections, even democracy itself,” wrote reporter Steven Lee Myers for the New York Times last year.
The paper also lamented that “billions of people will vote in major elections around the world in 2024” without enough censorship from social media companies.
‘Is It Time to Torch the Constitution?’
Other media outlets have suggested abolishing the US Constitution entirely.
“The Constitution Is Sacred. Is It Also Dangerous?” read a New York Times headline in August.
“Is It Time to Torch the Constitution?” read a headline from the New Yorker last month.
Elections as a ‘threat to democracy’
Earlier this year, media operatives worried that elections are threatening democracy.
“2024 Is the Year of Elections and That’s a Threat to Democracy,” wrote Bloomberg Senior Editor Tobin Harshaw. The former New York Times op-ed deputy editor expressed concern that this year’s presidential election will be a repeat of the one in 2016, which he claimed was manipulated by Donald Trump and the Kremlin.
However, Harshaw is not just concerned about US elections. The columnist is troubled that people around the world can vote.
“41% of the world’s population is having major elections this year. Yay democracy! Right? Not really, what with extremist populist parties — mostly right-wing — on the rise everywhere from the European Union to the Pacific rim,” Harshaw wrote.
Harshaw is only one of several media operatives who take issue with elections.
TIME Senior Correspondent Justin Worland also warned that elections are a “challenge” to “climate change” because voters are more concerned with other issues.
“[E]lections speak to the core of climate change’s democracy challenge,” Worland wrote. “Climate change, as urgent as the scientific reality may be, feels less urgent to voters than their economic challenges. And elected officials respond to that to win elections.”
In an article for The Atlantic titled “Lots of People Will Vote This Year. That Doesn’t Mean Democracy Will Survive,” Brian Klaas said, “[T]here are more elections than ever before in human history, and yet the world is becoming less democratic.”
Warning that “populists are growing in popularity and power,” Klaas went on to fret that voters may “make the wrong choice” this year and thus "imperil" democracy.
