U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) is calling on social media monopolies to “do more than take down one website,” meaning take down more websites on top of InfoWars, which was de-platformed by YouTube, Facebook, and others on Monday.
“Infowars [sic] is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart,” Murphy tweeted Monday afternoon. “These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it.”
Obviously, what Murphy sees here is an opportunity to go around the First Amendment, to kill free and open speech he disagrees with, and to accomplish that using social media giants as his hit squad.
Democrats and the establishment media are desperate to return America back to the pre-Internet days when a very few corporations controlled the free flow of information, those corporations being the four television networks and a handful of newspapers and wire services.
Conservatives now find themselves, once again, in the precarious position of being at the mercy of just a handful of companies: Twitter, Facebook, Apple, YouTube, Pinterest, etc… And what Murphy and his left-wing confederates want is to crush speech, to control the flow of information, to strangle certain ideas in the crib, and to use these monopolies as a way to go back to the “good old days” when the left-wing establishment fully controlled the dissemination of news.
If America had a media that was worth a damn, Murphy would be asked for a list of these “websites” he would like to see de-platfomed and disappeared. Unfortunately, the same media outlets that claim the First Amendment is being violated whenever they are criticized, have joined in this unholy and un-American crusade to silence their critics on the political right.
What’s more, Murphy’s call for these big companies to remove websites is not a small deal. As a sitting United States Senator, he has the power to threaten and regulate these corporations to do his bidding.
In more ways than one way Alex Jones and InfoWars are the canary in the coalmine of free speech.
While I personally find InfoWars ridiculous and dishonest (although there are some good people working there), as a free speech extremist, I want to protect the rights of those who lie and spread nonsense in the same way I want to protect the rights of pornographers and even an outlet like CNN that spreads hate and foments violence.
If InfoWars and pornographers and CNN are safe from censorship, than so are you and I. Moreover, there is no speech out there (unless it’s an open call for violence) that results in something worse than what we see when speech is regulated or silenced.
In other words, I prefer a world where people are allowed to lie to a world where someone decides what is and is not a lie.
InfoWars being silenced tightens the free speech circle, brings the line closer to you and I, especially in a terrifying and chilling climate where the left-wing establishment are deciding what “lies and hate” are.
Killing the InfoWars canary, however, will also embolden the censors at CNN and those like Murphy in the political world. They see that dead canary as a success, and as a blueprint to come after the rest of us. And make no mistake, we are all next.
Finally, and this is important, what Murphy is calling for is even more extreme than what happened to InfoWars.
Murphy is calling for “websites” to be taken down — entire websites.
In deleting their accounts, what Facebook and YouTube did to Infowars is bad enough, but Jones still has his own site, his own outlet; and now we have a sitting United States Senator is calling for that to be removed.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.