Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.) has some peculiar ideas. Over the weekend he tweeted:
Your weekend reminder that Trump inherited a strong economy from Obama and made it worse. Facts are facts. Job growth has been slower than during last 18 month of Obama. Wage growth is much lower.
Yesterday he was back at the drawing board. Responding to news that Facebook and other big tech companies have banned Infowars from their platforms, Murphy advocated more of the same, claiming that the “survival of our democracy depends” on it.
Infowars is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart. These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it.
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) August 6, 2018
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Naturally, this recommendation didn’t sit well with those who support the idea of free speech, something guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Thanks for confirming your hatred of the first amendment Chris. You do realize this is not what Democracy looks like, don't you?
— Tony Bruno (@TonyBrunoShow) August 6, 2018
"must do more than take down one website" https://t.co/Dx68EALrXa
— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) August 7, 2018
Good point: How many pro-Trump sites does Murphy want taken down?
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1026677485453406208
The “survival of our democracy depends on” defeating InfoWars is the kind of thing a totally serious senator says. https://t.co/TvHhJvNqmH
— James Hasson (@JamesHasson20) August 7, 2018
The survival of out democracy depends on silencing the free expression and exchange of ideas? I have no love for AJ, but I strongly suggest you go back and reread Evelyn Beatrice Hall, George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. Those 3 are a good starting point.
— Thomas Gilleran (@SchoolcarTSS) August 7, 2018
That’s exactly what Murphy is saying.
This, by the way, should come as no surprise, given that Democrats are now circulating plans for a complete government takeover of the Internet, which includes mandatory location and identity verification:
According to Reason:
A leaked memo circulating among Senate Democrats contains a host of bonkers authoritarian proposals for regulating digital platforms, purportedly as a way to get tough on Russian bots and fake news. To save American trust in “our institutions, democracy, free press, and markets,” it suggests, we need unprecedented and undemocratic government intervention into online press and markets, including “comprehensive (GDPR-like) data protection legislation” of the sort enacted in the E.U.
Titled “Potential Policy Proposals for Regulation of Social Media and Technology Firms,” the draft policy paper—penned by Sen. Mark Warner and leaked by an unknown source to Axios—the paper starts out by noting that Russians have long spread disinformation, including when “the Soviets tried to spread ‘fake news’ denigrating Martin Luther King” (here he fails to mention that the Americans in charge at the time did the same). But NOW IT’S DIFFERENT, because technology.
“Today’s tools seem almost built for Russian disinformation techniques,” Warner opines. And the ones to come, he assures us, will be even worse.
“Other proposals include more disclosure requirements for online political speech, more spending to counter supposed cybersecurity threats, more funding for the Federal Trade Commission, a requirement that companies’ algorithms can be audited by the feds (and this data shared with universities and others), and a requirement of ‘interoperability between dominant platforms,’” Reason added.
This is just the beginning, as Adina Kutnicki and I pointed out in our book, “Banned: How Facebook Enables Militant Islamic Jihad.”
Now we have Democrats openly embracing censorship.
Talk about your slippery slope.
This is a very authoritarian mindset from Murphy. But I guess it shouldn't be that surprising given that he's such an anti-gun zealot https://t.co/xQLmxFplJ7
— Aaron Bandler (@bandlersbanter) August 7, 2018
It shouldn’t be surprising given that he’s a liberal Democrat.
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