Klobuchar’s plan would destroy internet freedom
Benjamin Franklin, credited as the “First American,” once said: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
I guess that rules out Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
Her proposed bill to make social media companies liable for spreading “health misinformation” is grave evidence that too many of our supposedly American citizens are so preoccupied with securing a little temporary safety that they can’t conceive how the resulting regulatory burden would require the mass censorship of any opinions or information determined to be “misinformation” by the state. In short, it would be the end of free speech online as we know it.
Klobuchar’s bill would strip social media companies found guilty of spreading “health misinformation” — as determined by the Department of Health and Human Services, an arbitrary, unelected, executive agency — of the Section 230 protections that ensure companies are not liable for the content their users post. Free citizens of the world, and those still yearning to be free, know the internet’s power to deliver the critical exchange of ideas and information that make resistance against tyranny possible.
While other countries’ stringent laws make hosting content uploaded by third-party individuals like you and me a potential liability, we in the United States are blessed by Section 230, which shields platforms from being liable for whatever online miscreants, rabble-rousers or rebels post for all the world (except China) to see. There’s little question the aegis of our Section 230 protections has been a significant factor in our nation’s unparalleled dominance of global internet communications.
However, removing Section 230 protections from companies whose users have shared “health misinformation” would challenge not only our internet dominance but the very freedom of the internet itself. To comply with censorship of state-mandated “health misinformation,” social media companies would need to dramatically increase content moderation, incurring significant cost on social media companies and terminating the era of free speech that thus far has characterized the World Wide Web.
Worse, empowering a politically appointed head of an executive agency to determine what is and isn’t “health misinformation” would deliver a political sledgehammer to whomever occupies the Oval Office. No American should want to see an unelected official with the arbitrary power to declare what’s “health misinformation,” especially when the current party in power’s liberality with language has resulted in everything under the sun to be deemed “infrastructure.”
After all, if paid leave and more welfare is “infrastructure,” then what’s to stop Democrats from categorizing firearms discussions or even organizing rallies on controversial topics as unpermitted “health misinformation”? Conversely, leftists should fear a Republican executive potentially using this power to deem abortion access information “health misinformation” — this power’s potential for abuse by any party is an unacceptable threat to our republic.
The federal government that told us masks wouldn’t help then promoted wearing multiple masks. It told us the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis was a dangerous conspiracy, but now it believes it’s true. How could anyone think the government could be an effective arbiter of truth? And why would we give this government even one more iota of power to determine reality?
Every day, new regulations strip away freedoms that for so long have enabled our republic to function and flourish, and there’s no question growing censorship by social media companies, either meant to preempt federal regulation or to limit the reach of partisan foes, already diminishes the free discourse that underpins our society. But Klobuchar’s measure to give the federal government Ministry of Truth powers to permit the financial obliteration of platforms that don’t stop the spread of “misinformation” would be a fatal wound to the freedom of speech that has defined our nation — and the internet — since its inception.
I’m not so pessimistic. I believe freedom still lives in our people’s hearts. But to keep that flame alive, it’s our duty to reject Klobuchar’s proposed indignity and decry it for what it is: nothing short of a prelude to total technological tyranny.