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As the FBI’s political censorship of social media comes to light, proponents of weaponizing government are using a different tool: Biden’s Federal Communications Commission.
The FCC may sound boring. But from a First Amendment perspective, it’s more dangerous than the FBI.
It is being weaponized against you.
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As the central government recovers from the horrifying revelations in the Twitter documents, it increasingly marginalizes, censors, and suppresses the free speech of Americans who express views that unaccountable bureaucrats believe should not be allowed.
The government is always looking for new ways to frustrate Americans online and limit what people can say, read or watch. (Cyberguy.com)
We all know the pattern now. Anonymous officials label unsanctioned facts, even if they are true, as disinformation. They dismiss unsanctioned views as conspiracy theories.
Last year, a federal court issued a harsh verdict against the government, suggesting that some so-called “conspiracy theories” were correct all along. The ruling in Missouri v. Biden shows that a centralized machine engages in “coercive censorship” of social media companies to silence citizens with erroneous views.
Judge Terry Doughty said in the ruling that “the U.S. government appears to be playing a role similar to the Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’ in the novel “1984.”
The Biden team appealed in Murthy v. Missouri , which was argued before the Supreme Court last week. The government admitted it was trying to “enforce” some forms of censorship. It complained that victims and individual states were using the courts to “audit all communications by the executive branch to and about social media platforms.”
Translation: The central government wants to deny American citizens the right to accurately identify who in the administrative state is responsible for censoring them. Please keep this in mind.
The case documents the brutal tactics behind this. All of this in the name of “national security,” healthcare, and of course, fighting “disinformation.”
Meanwhile, the seemingly innocuous Federal Communications Commission is engaged in two power grabs targeting Internet service providers. As we all know, ISPs are companies that own and operate the infrastructure that provides access to the Internet.
We have dissident FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr to thank for sounding the alarm. The FCC’s agenda goes far beyond the FBI’s relatively narrow crackdown on personal accounts revealed in the Twitter documents.
Carr warned that the FCC’s power grab would allow the agency to grant privileges to politically compliant ISPs and punish politically non-compliant ISPs.
“President Biden gave the FCC his marching orders,” Carr explained last October. “The President is calling on the FCC to implement a one-page section of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 (the Infrastructure Act) by adopting new rules of staggering scale, all in the name of ‘digital equity.’”
Carr said this central planning for digital equity “for the first time ever” would give the federal government a liquidity mandate to micromanage nearly every aspect of how the internet operates — from how ISPs allocate capital to where they build. , to what the service consumers can buy; from the profits ISPs can realize and how they market and advertise their services, to the discounts and promotions consumers can get. ”
In the era of DEI, the Biden-FCC initiative could dictate terms to ISPs based on customers’ race, social and economic status.
As if that wasn’t enough, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is enacting net neutrality regulations for ISPs, classifying them as rate-regulated utilities. If the government can control what services you provide and how much you can charge, then it pretty much owns you. With such a powerful government controlling their every decision, what ISP can’t bend to the will of the administrative state?
The massive accumulation of central government power is where the threat of lawless censorship lies.
With such power, what can politicians in Washington quietly force ISPs to do behind the scenes? Independent or conservative news and opinion platforms may be slowed down, banned, or deplatformed if some faceless bureaucrat or some left-wing activist group mistakenly labels them as purveyors of disinformation or hate speech ?
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We have already seen evidence that governments will use their existing powers to secretly censor or suppress information. Just imagine what it could do if it were given greater power over private communications platforms.
Because some ISPs own independent news, online media, and entertainment platforms, consider how the FCC’s large-scale indirect control of their platforms might affect the information and messaging of these subsidiaries.
Tough policies are couched in consumer-friendly language. But as Carr explains, “It was never about improving your online experience—that was just sheepskin. It was always about control.”
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“The plan is motivated by an ideology of government control that is incompatible with the basic principles of free market capitalism,” he said.
More dangerous than the FBI’s abuse of power. Has the power to scrutinize us all.