As online censorship intensifies, the U.S. Senate is about to codify language into laws that would worsen the problem by protecting Big Tech’s "safety" catchall under federal law.
Top conservative senators are supporting two laws that ensure First Amendment-protected content from censorship – but contain a secret trap door for the censors.
The issue is "safety."
As with so much online, words no longer mean what people think they mean. Big Data and its political allies have weaponized safety to censor honest discussion.
We saw how they did it to stifle alternative innovations to help people handle the pandemic. Questioning government mandates became a threat to those doing the mandating. Safety became a code-word to censor various points of view, evidence, and facts.
Now, Big Data and the U.S. Senate are on the verge of codifying this into law.
Well-intentioned lawmakers, attempting to combat the problem, apparently failed to notice the trap door in the pending legislation.
The past few years have taught us more about the main slogan that George Orwell coined for Big Brother, in "1984," "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."
The new line ready to pass the Senate is: "Censorship is safety."
This is the opposite of what conservative senators who support the bills intend. But the end result is the end result, thanks to the secret trap doors in two pieces of legislation.
The Senate Judiciary Committee recently passed two bills: the Open App Markets Act, or OAMA, and the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA). Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., sponsored OAMA. Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, introduced AICOA.
Liberal/Left groups complain that they do too little to combat "misinformation," "disinformation," and "hate speech."
The bills seem like good, bipartisan solutions to rein in the power of Big Tech. And indeed they are.
Except for the "safety" poison pill.
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube all have corporate "safety" units not only to censor, but to deplatform people, apps, and companies for ideological reasons. Facebook has its division of Safety and Expression. Twitter has its Trust and Safety Council. YouTube has a unit called Trust and Safety.
There’s little trust or safety in any of them.
This is what makes both bills so dangerous. Last year, Sen. Klobuchar introduced a bill to hold social media companies legally liable for any "disinformation" or "hate speech" on their platforms. She termed it a "safety and civil rights" measure. The Klobuchar bill wasn’t aimed at the Big Prog platforms with their “safety” monitors. Although the senator didn’t explicitly say so, her bill was aimed at the conservative alternatives like Parler, Gab, and Rumble.
The "safety" trap door is an incrementalist approach to permanent online censorship of disfavored ideas. It induced solid conservatives to cosponsor and vote for the bills for consideration by the whole Senate.
Online "safety" is not defined in federal law, case law, or federal regulation. It’s arbitrary. Anyone can interpret it however they want. This is dangerous when codified into law, as both bills would do.
The small trap door is easily fixable.
A simple amendment would say that the "safety" provisions would apply only when not based on First Amendment-protected speech or viewpoints.
Somehow, First Amendment protections escaped the Senate Judiciary’s attention.
Senators should restore the First Amendment to the bipartisan bills while there’s still time.
J. Michael Waller is a Washington-based national security analyst and former graduate school professor who specializes in propaganda, disinformation, and political warfare.
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