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| The vast majority of people can agree that disinformation about, let's say, the pandemic is unhealthy. | |
| The government actually has a duty to protect the citizens of this country. | |
| NPR has this. | |
| In a major case testing the role of First Amendment in the Internet age, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday hears arguments focused on the federal government's ability to combat what it sees as false, misleading, or dangerous information online. | |
| Last September, the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals, the most conservative federal appeals court in the U.S., issued a broad ruling that barred key government officials from contacts with social media companies. | |
| Among the personnel targeted in the order were officials of the White House, the Centers for Disease Control Prevention, the Office of the Surgeon General, the FBI, and an important separate cybersecurity agency. | |
| The appeals court said that individuals at those agencies likely violated the First Amendment by seeking to coerce social media platforms into moderating or changing their content about COVID-19, foreign interference in elections, and even Hunter Biden's laptop. | |
| Supreme Court has put that ruling on hold while it examines the tricky issues in the case. | |
| The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are two states, Missouri and then Louisiana, and five individuals, including vaccine opponents, who either were banned from some internet platforms at the height of COVID-19, or whose posts, they say, were not prominently featured on social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and X, formerly known as Twitter, not prominently featured, otherwise known as, you know, the algorithm was suppressing. | |
| These content was being suppressed by the algorithms. | |
| The Biden administration notes that under established First Amendment precedent, the government itself is entitled to express its views and to try to persuade others. | |
| As the government says in its brief, quote, a central dimension of presidential power is the use of the office bully pulpit to seek to persuade Americans and American companies to act in a way that would advance the public interest. | |
| Now, first of all, despite what the Biden administration is claiming, nobody is saying that the government itself can't try to persuade people of its own position. | |
| So if they want to put out a PSA or whatever about the dangers of quote unquote misinformation, they can do that. | |
| No one is saying they can't. | |
| I haven't heard anyone say that. | |
| But the thing about a PSA or an argument presented in any other form is that we are free to disagree with it or ignore it entirely, which is why the Biden administration is not satisfied to express its view and try to persuade others. | |
| That's not what this is about at all. | |
| Again, if that's all they wanted to do, then this would not be an issue and it wouldn't be at the Supreme Court because no one is suggesting that President Biden can't come out and say, you know, here's what I think misinformation is. | |
| information is and I'm opposed to it and you shouldn't share it. | |
| He can say that if he wants to say it. | |
| And again, we are perfectly free to just ignore what he's saying completely, which is what I would do. | |
| But instead, of course, the Biden administration wants to use social media platforms as censorship proxies to shut down the speech that they don't like and ban and deplatform the purveyors of what they claim is quote unquote misinformation. | |
| And that's the problem. | |
| You know, their way of persuading the public is by ensuring that the public only hears their side of the story. | |
| That's the persuasion technique that they want to use, which is a blatant violation of the first amendment and that's the entire issue um and it all centers around this idea of misinformation which is just not something that the government should be in the business of combating at least beyond uh issuing psas if they want to and uh and trying to persuade people um if it's simply making arguments that's one thing but beyond that it has no role because information in this context | |
| is simply the substance of what is conveyed through methods of communication. | |
| All of the stuff online is information and there's billions of bits of information flying every which way at the speed of light every second. | |
| And some of the information reflects reality. | |
| Some of the information reflects what someone wishes was the reality. | |
| Some of the information is good. | |
| Some of it is bad. | |
| Some of it is useless. | |
| Much of it is useless. | |
| Much of it is distracting. | |
| Much of it is unimportant. | |
| This is the age we live in. | |
| And it's almost certainly a net negative in the grand scheme of things. | |
| All of this information, it's too much. | |
| We're exposed to far too much of it. | |
| We can't process most of it. | |
| And most people lack the discernment to effectively distinguish between what is real and what is important and what isn't and so on and so on. | |
| So yeah, it's a, I think a net negative, it'd be better if, you know, we were not all surrounded by all this information all the time, but this is the reality of the world we live in. | |
| And even if it has its pitfalls, massive, gaping pitfalls, we cannot fill those holes in or make anything better by giving the government the power to act as a giant filter, deciding which pieces of information are good or bad and which pieces we should see and which we shouldn't see and all the rest of it. | |
| That's not how we can solve this problem. | |
| We live in the information age regardless, which means it's an age dominated and driven by information. | |
| To give the government. | |
| that kind of power to be the filter is then to give them essentially absolute power over our lives and our minds. | |
| And we cannot do that. | |
| And we especially can't do it with an administration like this one. | |
| Like, how can we give them the power to determine what counts as misinformation when we already know that they believe or at least pretend to believe many things that are wildly untrue and which do not. | |
| reflect reality and which contradict the facts in an extreme way. | |
| I mean, certainly anyone who believes that men can get pregnant, for example, is unqualified to be the judge and jury ruling over the flow of information um but really no one is qualified for that position and that's the point um although it's a point that not all of the justices seem to understand so for example here is kentanji brown jackson revealing some uh very fundamental confusion about uh the constitution and the government and what their exact role is | |
| she can't define what a woman is we already know that And now she also has revealed that she doesn't know what the Constitution is. | |
| Although she revealed that, she's revealed that many times in the past, but this is a pretty stark example. | |
| Let's watch. | |
| Justice Jackson. | |
| So my biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways in the most important time periods. | |
| I mean, what would you have the government do? | |
| I've heard you say a couple of times that the government can post its own speech, but in my hypothetical, you know, kids, this is not safe, don't do it, is not going to get it done. | |
| And so I guess some might say that the government actually has a duty to take steps to protect the citizens of this country, and you seem to be suggesting that that duty cannot manifest itself in the government encouraging or even pressuring platforms to take down harmful information. | |
| So can you help me? | |
| Because I'm really, I'm really worried about that because you've got the First Amendment operating in an environment of threatening circumstances from the government's perspective, and you're saying that the government cannot interact with the source of those problems. | |
| So she's worried that the First Amendment may hamstring the government. | |
| That's what she's worried will happen. | |
| And yes, Kantanji, it will. | |
| i mean it does it should that's the point that is literally quite literally the the whole point of the first amendment uh that's the whole point of the bill of rights it's in fact is to hamstring the government to limit the scope of the government's authority to say these things are off limits you cannot touch these things and um to to prevent it from infringing on our basic human rights that's why the first amendment exists So, | |
| and this is a, this is a Supreme Court justice who is not clear on that fact. | |
| In fact, is worried. | |
| She's very worried that she's worried that the First Amendment might do what it's supposed to do. | |
| That's what she's worried about. | |
| And she's a Supreme Court justice. | |
| And, but she's part, you know, she's, she's really part of the whole regime, part of the whole system that, that only proves why these people, like if, if anybody was equipped to be the filter of information to decide what information people should see and shouldn't see, to decide what is misinformation and what isn't. | |
| If there's anybody equipped to do that, and I don't think anybody is, but if there was anybody, it's not these people. | |
| Like they can't, they don't know what a woman is. | |
| They can't, they don't know. | |
| They've got Supreme Court justices that don't even know what the Constitution is or what it's supposed to do, just deeply confused, or at least presenting themselves as deeply confused, which really it's the same thing. | |
| So they're deeply confused about the most basic fundamental facts and these are the exact same people who want to decide what counts as misinformation and uh and and what doesn't um and that just cannot be allowed Well, picture this. | |
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| All right, big news to start with from The Daily Wire and also related to The Daily Wire. | |
| It says it's the article on the homepage right now. | |
| The Daily Wire, the Federalist, and the state of Texas joined on Tuesday in a lawsuit against the U.S. State Department alleging that the government agency funded censorship technology designed to bankrupt domestic media outlets with disfavored political opinions. | |
| The State Department is tasked with foreign relations and has no authority over domestic affairs, yet it took a government office designed for countering foreign terrorist propaganda, which is called the Global Engagement Center, and unleashed it against the Americans engaged in what it claimed was disinformation, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas. | |
| by the New Civil Liberties Alliance. | |
| It was, quote, one of the most audacious, manipulative, secretive, and gravest abuses of power and infringements of First Amendment rights by the federal government in American history, said the suit, which also names the Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and five other officials as defendants. | |
| The lawsuit asks the judge to declare the State Department's attempt to interfere with domestic speech illegal and to permanently bar it from developing, promoting, or encouraging others to use technology to de-amplify, shadow ban, or restrict the lawful speech of the American press and Americans. | |
| GEC was founded in 2011 as the Center for Strategic Counterterterrorism Communications and tasked with countering propaganda of foreign terrorists like Al-Qaeda. | |
| In 2016, it was renamed but kept the same counterterrorism mission. | |
| Congress has made it clear that none of the funds authorized for the entity shall be used for purposes other than countering foreign propaganda. | |
| Nevertheless, GC turned its focus on Americans. | |
| The complaint alleges using taxpayer funds to finance the development and promotion of censorship organizations such as NewsGuard, which we've talked about on the show, and the Global Disinformation Index, which regularly targets conservative media outlets such as The Daily Wire and The Federalist with the stated goal of limiting ad revenue. | |
| Now, there's a lot more to this. | |
| I'm not going to read the entire thing. | |
| It's a long article from Luke Rosiak, but you should go to The Daily Wire and read it because it's a very important, very significant free speech case. | |
| I don't think that this lawsuit from the Daily Wire and the Federalists and others is going to get a ton of press, certainly not from the corporate press for obvious reasons, but even by other conservatives, I don't think it's going to get a lot of attention because it's not sexy, right? | |
| It's not flashy or showy. | |
| Instead, it is a smart and necessary and effective and substantive way. | |
| to fight back against the censorship regime. | |
| And we know that very oftentimes the smart, necessary, substantive, effective things are the things that don't get a lot of attention. | |
| They aren't appreciated as much. | |
| Be that as it may, this is extremely important because This is how censorship works in the modern age. | |
| So for the most part, you know, the government is not coming in and saying, you're not allowed to say this. | |
| Right. | |
| We haven't had the government show up at the Daily Wire offices and say, here are things you're not allowed to say anymore. | |
| They haven't sent federal agents into the office to raid. | |
| you know our offices and cart me and ben and michael and candice away in handcuffs like they haven't done that yet it may come to that point it may well come to that point but it hasn't happened yet um i if Joe Biden wins a second term, I would not be surprised. | |
| In fact, I would, if Joe Biden wins a second term and the country is run by his handlers for a second term, I would be surprised if we didn't get to the point where they were actually doing federal raids of, you know, prominent conservative media outlets and putting people like me in jail. | |
| But that's not where we are yet. | |
| Where we are now is it's a more underhanded approach. | |
| And the approach instead is to conspire to label us misinformation and to use that as a pretense to make our content less accessible through algorithms. | |
| Or in this case, to deprive us of ad revenue, which in the long term is supposed to have the effect of shutting down our businesses. | |
| And that's what makes the whole thing less sort of dramatic, less attention grabbing in certain ways because it's one thing if we came to you and we can't. | |
| we said the government is telling us we're not allowed to say this thing Everyone knows that's a big deal. | |
| But it's different when we say the government is trying to label our content misinformation and make it less accessible through social media algorithms and deprive us of ad revenue indirectly. | |
| Like when you say that, people's eyes start to gloss over a little bit. | |
| But they shouldn't because it is effectively the same thing. | |
| They know they can't come in directly and point guns at us and say, stop saying that. | |
| Again, maybe eventually it'll come to that. | |
| Right now, they can't get away with it. | |
| And so they're not doing that. | |
| And they found other ways to do it. | |
| And they're using counterterrorism agencies and they're using all these different agencies and programs that were set up for other allegedly for other purposes. | |
| and they're doing it all under the guise of quote unquote misinformation. | |
| And who decides what counts as misinformation? | |
| Well, of course, they do. | |
| The ruling regime does. | |
| The people who believe that men can have babies and women have penises, these are the ones who are deciding what is misinformation. | |
| Which, by the way, even if we could trust their judgment on what qualifies as misinformation, which we can't. | |
| Even if we could, I would still say this is all totally wrong. | |
| Because it's just not the government's job to counter misinformation. | |
| It's not the government's job to declare what sort of information you should have access to as an allegedly free citizen of an allegedly free country. | |
| But it's made all the worse by the fact that, as we know, when they say misinformation, they simply mean information that they would prefer you not see, whatever their reasons may be for that. | |
| And 99 times out of 100, the reason they don't want you to see it is not because it's wrong, but because, in fact, it's right. | |
| All right. | |
| Number one, Brian Stelter on CNN defended efforts to shut down conservative content, efforts being made even by CNN using a pithy little phrase that you could tell he's very proud of where he says it's about it's about freedom of reach not freedom of speech. | |
| I'm going to play this for you because it'll it may surprise you to learn. | |
| I actually agree with some of what he's saying and I'll explain why, but let's listen first. | |
| But while some cry cancel culture, let me suggest a different way to think about this, a harm reduction model. | |
| Most people want clean air and blue skies and accurate news and rational views and then in that healthy environment that looks beautiful. | |
| Then we can have great fights about taxes and regulation and health care and all the rest. | |
| The vast majority of people can agree that disinformation about, let's say, the pandemic is unhealthy. | |
| It's harmful. | |
| So how can that harm be reduced? | |
| Well, big tech platforms say they are removing lies about vaccines and stamping out Stop the Steal BS and queuing on cult content. | |
| Now do these private companies have too much power? | |
| Sure. | |
| And many people would say yes, of course they do. | |
| But reducing a liar's reach is not the same as censoring freedom of speech. | |
| Freedom of speech is different than freedom of reach. | |
| An algorithmic reach is part of the problem. | |
| The only thing I agree with him there on is that it's not about freedom of speech. | |
| Or at least we shouldn't be framing it that way. | |
| I am increasingly convinced that it's a mistake to frame all of this stuff. | |
| Everything. | |
| We always try to bring everything down. | |
| With the way debates work in our country now, everything always comes down to freedom of speech, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. | |
| We always try to boil it down to that. | |
| I think that's a mistake. | |
| Partly because freedom of speech as a concept is so vague nobody really knows what it means. | |
| There's no agreement. | |
| When you go around and say, oh, this is freedom of speech, and you say that, you know, if you're in a room of people and you're talking to 20 different people and you say freedom of speech, all 20 of them will have 20 different ideas of what freedom of speech even means. | |
| It's just, it's not a helpful way of framing your argument. | |
| So when it comes to conservatives being kicked off big tech platforms, canceled, censored, whatever phrase you want to use, I obviously am 100% against it. | |
| And I'm in favor of forcing some transparency with these big tech companies, preventing them through government force from censoring in the way that they are. | |
| But I don't think we frame it as freedom of speech. | |
| I think this is an issue of ethics. | |
| Yes. | |
| is an issue of transparency of consistency of power You know, how much power should these companies actually have? | |
| I think that's the way that's the way we should frame this. | |
| Is it ethical for these companies to be doing this that have so much power to control the national dialogue and decide who can be heard and who can't? | |
| Is it ethical? | |
| Is it right for them, while not even admitting, by the way, what they're doing, not being transparent about it? | |
| Is it ethical for them to, you know, kick conservatives off, apply a standard to certain political ideologies that they don't apply to others? | |
| No, it's not ethical. | |
| It's not right. | |
| They shouldn't have that power. | |
| And I think I can make that argument without saying anything about freedom of speech. | |
| It's just not right and it's not ethical. | |
| And I'll use Stelter's phrase there. | |
| It's harm reduction. | |
| Well, he wants to reduce harm by reducing the visibility of conservatives. | |
| That's his idea of reducing harm. | |
| Because he's worried that people are harmed by opposing ideas. | |
| He only wants people to hear his ideas and the ideas of people he agrees with. | |
| And if you hear any other ideas, then you're being harmed. | |
| So he's trying to protect you very nicely by making sure you don't hear any other ideas that might be confusing and scary to you. | |
| I have a different idea of harm reduction. | |
| How do we reduce the harm being done by big tech companies with all the power they wield to manipulate the public discussion and debate? | |
| How do we reduce that harm? | |
| I think we could do all of this without muddying the waters. | |
| by making an argument about free speech. | |
| Because once you do that, then first we have to have a discussion about what free speech even means and who does it apply to? | |
| And does it only apply where the government is concerned? | |
| I mean, as long as the government. | |
| itself as a governmental body is not preventing people from saying things, is it the case that free speech is irrelevant to that? | |
| We could put all that to the side and just establish that the big tech companies are doing great harm to the country. | |
| They're exercising a level of power that they should not have. | |
| They're not being transparent. | |
| And they're being unethical. |