Trump challenges tech censorship – finally
Exclusive: Joseph Farah exults in president's action to hold social media accountable
By Joseph FarahPublished May 29, 2020 at 3:16pm
I've been waiting a long time for this.
Those who followed my somewhat manic writings in 2017, 2018 and 2019 about the imminent threat to free speech in America may have thought I was over-reacting.
Indeed, some thought I was obsessed; others thought I was crazy.
Here are just a few examples of my columns from those days:
- How the Big Tech cabal is killing WND
- The existential threat Google-Facebook represent to America
- Why Trump must bust up Big Tech in 2019
- How Google is stealing our liberty
- Enemy No. 1: Media-Technology Complex
I had watched a news business that had been one of the big internet success stories over 20 years suddenly reel out of control.
Most of the 50 employees had to be let go.
Our beautiful 6,000-square-foot office had to be closed.
Our revenues dropped from $15 million a year to less than $1 million.
It was painful to see – unless you were part of the "fake news" cabal.
The pressure personally was unreal – culminating with five strokes in 2019 and major disability.
To put it in perspective, WND, or WorldNetDaily, at its highest point had been a revolutionary new-media enterprise.
Thanks to the determination of a small team of veteran journalists, it survives today to battle for another day.
What changed the landscape so radically?
Google, Facebook, Amazon and the tech mercenaries.
And what happened yesterday that caused a potential sea change in respect for free speech?
President Donald Trump signed an executive order fighting back.
"A small handful of powerful social media monopolies controls a vast portion of all public and private communications in the United States," Trump said.
"They've had unchecked power to censor, restrict, edit, shape, hide, alter, virtually any form of communication between private citizens and large public audiences."
The executive order calls on the Commerce Department to petition the Federal Communications Commission to review Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law that treated tech companies like other telecom businesses that serve as "carriers" that post content without discrimination or bias, and provided them with a legal shield protecting them from being sued.
Therefore, Google and Facebook are unlike publishers, which are not exempt from lawsuits based on content.
The president said his executive order "calls for new regulations" under Section 230 to "make it that social media companies that engage in censoring or any political conduct will not be able to keep their liability shield.
That's a big deal. They have a shield. They can do what they want."
Additionally, Attorney General William Barr said Thursday the Justice Department would draft legislation aiming to curtail the liability protections tech companies receive from Section 230.
"This debate is an important one," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said after the order was made public.
"The Federal Communications Commission will carefully review any petition for rulemaking filed by the Department of Commerce."
The executive order signed by the president reminds us of the titanic stakes facing the country.
"Free speech is the bedrock of American democracy," it reads. "Our Founding Fathers protected this sacred right with the First Amendment to the Constitution. The freedom to express and debate ideas is the foundation for all of our rights as a free people. In a country that has long cherished the freedom of expression, we cannot allow a limited number of online platforms to hand pick the speech that Americans may access and convey on the internet. This practice is fundamentally un-American and anti-democratic. When large, powerful social media companies censor opinions with which they disagree, they exercise a dangerous power. They cease functioning as passive bulletin boards, and ought to be viewed and treated as content creators."
When I began raising alarms about the dangers posed by Big Tech to free speech years ago, I looked to Congress, to the people and to other independent journalists for help.
I did not find much help. Tucker Carlson, Brent Bozell, Peter Schweizer and a handful of conservatives were some of the lone voices of courage.
Little did I suspect that with all of his battles he was waging as president, Donald Trump would ride to the rescue once again.
He sure is a sight for sore eyes.
He's more than that.
He's the greatest president of our lifetime.
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