Biden Distrusts Americans to Think For Themselves
In an apparent effort to maintain a working relationship with big tech, President Joe Biden this week softened his criticism of Facebook for allowing “misinformation” to proliferate on its platform. Some media outlets have characterized his clarifying statement as a “walk back.” However, while he now places primary blame for any deaths caused on the users posting the content, he is still “asking” social media platforms to pick and choose which topics users can talk about — according to his Administration’s recommendations.
Possibly referring to a CCDH report that says 12 individuals are responsible for the majority of COVID-19 “misinformation,” Biden said, “Facebook isn’t killing people. These 12 people are out there giving misinformation. Anyone listening to it is getting hurt by it. It’s killing people. It’s bad information. My hope is that Facebook, instead of taking it personally that somehow I’m saying Facebook is killing people, that they would do something about the misinformation. The outrageous misinformation about the vaccine. That’s what I meant.”
The President’s latest remarks should concern Americans for two reasons:
- He still maintains that any content not in alignment with the Administration’s recommendations is to be deemed “misinformation” and shouldn’t be posted online. As non-defamatory “misinformation” is still protected by the First Amendment, it is concerning that the government is openly goading tech giants into censoring what it should not.
- The implication is that individuals are unable to think critically, to make sound judgments about what best suits their needs without the assistance of authorities.
No one is omniscient. The science is never settled. What is deemed misinformation today could easily be rehabilitated tomorrow in light of further information.
The American government actively researching UFOs was said to be a conspiracy theory. The Pentagon had repeatedly denied any efforts to determine if UFOs existed. And yet we learned the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program was an official program that ran from 2007 to 2012 at the cost of $22 million annually. In the past two years, the Pentagon admitted to testing UFO wreckage and released reports that referenced Nitinol, a shape recovery alloy.
In May 2020, remdesivir was touted as the drug of choice for treating patients infected with COVID-19. Thousands of social media discussions were tagged as inaccurate, or concerns were deemed false by fact-checkers. A recent, more detailed study suggests that the drug may prolong hospital stays and has no survival benefits. Similarly, discussions of Ivermectin, now acknowledged to be at least potentially useful in treating COVID, have been demonetized or removed at the hands of some platforms, based on recommendations of medical “authorities.”
The idea that people shouldn’t be able to express concerns or talk about what’s most important to them is not only concerning, but also hypocritical. President Biden’s remarks contradict his stated intention to help Cubans regain internet access after their government — in an effort to control what residents could say or write, read, or hear — restricted their access to social media and messaging platforms. Any difference between what Biden is urging at home, and what he says he wishes to save Cubans from, is a difference of degree, not of kind.
President Biden is overstepping the boundaries set forth by the First Amendment. By putting social media platforms on public trial for hosting third-party content, he lends more weight to the notion that some content-removal decisions made by platforms are heavily influenced by the government, and so further supports the need for lawsuits like those being filed against tech giants by former President Trump.
“Individuals should not be outsourcing their critical thinking to anyone — whether another individual, a company…or a government official,” says Amy Peikoff, Parler’s Chief Policy Officer. “How has the West come to distrust the individual in such a fundamental way? An appeal to authority is, as basic logic tells us, a fallacy. It is not the road to salvation, no matter how well intentioned.”
