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The other day, Hillary Clinton told the media that the only way for the establishment to maintain its stranglehold on society is to give it “total control” over the internet, an idea that is much more of a threat than the “disinformation” she fears will run rampant without total deep state control over online free speech.
Not just Hillary but also Kamala Harris and even Donald Trump all seem to be suggesting these days that the only way to stop “misinformation” is for more controls to be placed on what people are allowed to say online. One idea that keeps coming up involves eradication Section 230 from the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which The Rutherford Institute‘s John and Nisha Whitefield describe as “a bulwark against online censorship.”
The details can sound complicated, but suffice it to say that Section 230 of the CDA covers the editorial responsibilities of internet sites – are they content publishers or merely content providers? When the CDA was first written, the internet barely even existed, so the issue is murky to the extent that nobody seems to agree about how much control the government should have to censor online speech.
One side argues that the government should have a lot more control while the other basically wants the government to stay out of it. Regardless, the matter is one of online free speech and how much of it deserves protection under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“What both the right and left attacks on the provision share is a willingness to use whatever excuses resonate – saving children, stopping bias, preventing terrorism, misogyny, and religious intolerance – to ensure more centralized control of online speech. They may couch these in partisan terms that play well with their respective bases, but their aim is essentially the same.”
Free speech, the bedrock of freedom itself
In many ways, the internet is the last place humanity has left to speak and share truth, which is precisely why the Hillary Clintons of the world want to destroy it – all to protect “democracy.”
The way they use the word “democracy,” by the way, is code for the existing world order that they control. Thus, whenever they say that “democracy” is threatened, what they mean is that their own power is threatened – which is exactly why We the People need free and open access to the internet.
As Justice Brandeis wrote more than a century ago:
“If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”
In other words, free speech is a bedrock for preserving what is good and clarifying what is true and what is false. Anyone who tries to tell you that free speech has to be abolished is your enemy.
“The right to criticize the government and speak out against government wrongdoing is the quintessential freedom,” the Whiteheads write. “You see, disinformation isn’t the problem. Government coverups and censorship are the problem.”
“Unfortunately, the government has become increasingly intolerant of speech that challenges its power, reveals its corruption, exposes its lies, and encourages the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices. Every day in this country, those who dare to speak their truth to the powers-that-be find themselves censored, silenced or fired.”
It is unlikely that the powers that be will back off in their anti-free speech crusade, but that does not mean We the People have to back off in fighting them to keep the internet as free as it can possibly be.
More related news coverage about the threat to online free speech can be found at Censorship.news.
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