"And Why Stop There?": CNN Analyst Calls For Sweeping Regulation of Free Speech On The Internet

[Ubiquitous]

We previously discussed the unrelenting drumbeat of censorship on the
Internet from Democratic leaders, including President-elect Joe Biden.
Those calls are growing as anti-free speech advocates see an
opportunity in the Biden Administration to crackdown on opposing views.
One vocal advocate of censorship and speech controls has been CNN media
analyst Oliver Darcy who just ratcheted up his call for de-platforming
opposing views. Like many anti-free speech advocates, Darcy simply
labels those with opposing views as spreading "disinformation" and
demands that they be labeled or barred from social media. In a recent
newsletter, Darcy calls for every tweet by Trump to be labeled as
disinformation while asking "and why stop there?" Precisely. Once you
cross the Rubicon of speech regulation, there is little reason or
inclination to stop. Just look at Europe.

Darcy wrote:

"Nearly every tweet from the president at this point is
labeled for misinfo. Which had me thinking. Why doesn't
Twitter just take the step of labeling his entire account
as a known source of election disinfo? And why stop there?
Why not label accounts that repeatedly spread claims the
platform has to fact-check?"

There was a time from the very touchstone of American journalism was
the rejection of such calls for censorship, including at CNN.

What is chilling about Darcy's writings is that they reflect the view
of many now in Congress and in the Democratic Party. Indeed, they
reflect many in the Biden campaign. Once a party that fought for free
speech, it has become the party demanding Internet censorship and hate
speech laws. President-Elect Joe Biden has called for speech controls
and recently appointed a transition head for agency media issues that
is one of the most pronounced anti-free speech figures in the United
States. It is a trend that seems now to be find support in the media,
which celebrated the speech of French President Emmanuel Macron before
Congress where he called on the United States to follow the model of
Europe on hate speech.

Darcy is calling for more active and extensive regulation of speech to
protect users from thoughts or views that he considers false or
dangerous: "Think of it as a version of NewsGuard for Twitter."

"NewsGuard" has a lovely Orwellian sound to be added to other codes for
censorship like Sen. Richard Blumenthal recently calling for "robust
content modification" on the internet. Who can object to a NewsGuard,
which Darcy describes like some beneficent St. Bernard watching over
our news and social postings? Of course, what Darcy considers
"disinformation" or what Blumenthal considers "robust content
modification" is left dangerously undefined.

So put me down as preferring free speech without the helpful guards and
content modification. Instead, I hold a novel idea that people can
reach their own conclusions on such is disinformation just as Darcy
does.

While not directly at issue, the posting quoted Darcy on the need for a
version of NewsGuard. I made reference to the term in the context of
Darcy's call for greater regulation of speech. After this posting ran,
I was contacted by Eric Effron, Editorial Director, NewsGuard. In
fairness to them, I wanted to include a statement from him and the
company:

"I believe you are misconstruing NewsGuard's role vis-…-vis
censorship. Our `Nutrition Labels' provide readers with
insights and information about more than 6,000 news and
information sites. When we write that a site does not run
corrections, say, or that it obscures its true owner, we are
not censoring, but rather, empowering citizens to make smarter
decisions about the information they consume. That's the
opposite of censorship."

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Trump won.