Category Archives: Free Speech

Caution: Free Speech May Be Hazardous to Your Health. Such a rewording of theoriginal 1965 warningon tobacco products could soon appear on social media platforms, if a Senate hearing this week is any indicator. Listening toformer Facebook product manager Frances Haugen, senators decried how Facebook is literally killing people by not censoring content, and Haugen proposed a regulatory board to protect the public.

But before we embrace a new ministry of information model to protect us from dangerous viewpoints, we may want to consider what we would lose in this Faustian free-speech bargain.

Warnings over the addiction and unhealthy content of the internet have been building into a movement for years.In July,President BidenJoe BidenMajority of Americans concerned about cyberattacks on critical groups: poll Labor secretary says 194K jobs added in September was 'not the best number' Biden task force has reunited 52 families separated under Trump: report MORE slammed Big Tech companies for killing people by failing to engage in even greater censorship of free speech on issues related to the pandemic.On Tuesday, many senators were enthralled by Haugens testimony because they, too, have long called for greater regulation or censorship. It all began reasonably enough over concerns about violent speech, and then expanded to exploitative speech. However, it continued to expand even further as the regulation of speech became an insatiable appetite for silencing opposing views.

In recent hearings with social media giants, members like Sen. Chris CoonsChris Andrew CoonsDemocratic lawmakers, Yellen defend Biden on the economy Sunday shows - Scalise won't say if election was stolen under questioning from Fox's Chris Wallace Democrat on controversial Schumer speech: Timing 'may not have been the best' MORE (D-Del.) were critical of limiting censorship to areas like election fraud and insteaddemanded censorship of disinformation on climate changeand other subjects. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) has repeatedly called for robust content modification to remove untrue or misleading information.

Haugen lashed out at what she said was the knowing harm committed against people, particularly children, byexposing them todisinformation or unhealthy views. Haugen wants the company to remove toxic content and change algorithms to make such sites less visible. She complained that sites with a high engagement rate are more likely to be favored in searches. However, the problem is that sites deemed false or harmful are too popular. Haugen said that artificially removing likes is not enough because the popularity or interest in some sites will still push them to the top of searches.

It was a familiar objection. Just the week before,Sen. Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth WarrenBuilding back better by investing in workers and communities Throttling free speech is not the way to fix Facebook and other social media Senate poised to stave off debt crisis MORE (D-Mass.) called for Amazon to steer readers to true books on climate change.Her objection was that the popularity of misleading books was pushing them to the top of searches, and she wants the algorithms changed to help readers pick what she considers to be healthier choices meaning, more in line with her views.

Similarly, Haugens solution seems to be well, her:Right now, the only people in the world who are trained to analyze these experiments, to understand what is happening inside there needs to be a regulatory home where someone like me could do a tour of duty afterworking at a place like [Facebook],and have a place to work on things like regulation. Censorship programs always begin with politicians and bureaucrats who in their own minds have the benefit of knowing what is true and the ability to protect the rest of us from our harmful thoughts.

Ironically, I have long been a critic of social media companies for their rapid expansion of censorship, including the silencing ofpolitical critics,public health expertsandpro-democracy movementsat the behest of foreign governments like China and Russia. I am unabashedly aninternet originalistwho favors an open, free forum for people to exchange ideas and viewpoints allowing free speech to be its own disinfectant of bad speech.

Facebook has been running a slick campaignto persuade people to embrace corporate censorship.Yet, now, even the Facebook censors are being denounced as too passive in the face of runaway free speech. The focus is on the algorithms used to remove content or, as with Haugen and Warren, used to flag or promote popular sites.

Haugen describes her approach as a non-content-based solution but it is clearly not that.She objects to algorithms like downstream MSI which tracks traffic and pushes postings based on past likes or comments. Asexplained by one site, it is based on their ability to engage users, not necessarily its usefulness or truthfulness.Of course, the objection to those un-useful sites is their content and claimed harm.

Like Warren, Haugen is calling for what I have criticized as enlightened algorithms to protect us from our own bad choices.Our digital sentinels are non-content-based but will magically remove bad content to prevent unhealthy choices.

There is no question that the internet is fueling an epidemic of eating disorders and other great social problems. The solution, however, is not to create regulatory boards or to reduce free speech. Europe has long deployed such oversight boards inremoving what it considers harmful stereotypesfrom advertising andbarring images of honey or chips but the results have been underwhelming at best.

It is no accident that authoritarian countries have long wanted such regulation, since free speech is a threat to their power. Now, we also have U.S. academics writing that China was right all along about censorship, and public officials demanding more power to censor further. We have lost faith in free speech, and we are being told to put our faith into algorithmic guardians.

We can confront our problems more effectively by using good speech to overcome bad speech. When it comes to minors, we can use parents to protect their children by increasing parental controls over internet access; we can help parents with more or better programs and resources for mental illnesses. Of course, it is hard to advocate for restraint when the image of an anorexic child is juxtaposed against the abstract concept of free speech. However, that is the sirens call of censorship: Protecting that child by reducing her free-speech rights is no solution for her but it is a solution for many who want more control over opposing views.

Free speech is not some six-post-a-day addiction that should be cured with algorithmic patches. There is no such thing as a content-neutral algorithm that removes only harmful disinformation because behind each of those enlightened algorithms are people who are throttling speech according to what they deem to be harmful thoughts or viewpoints.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates on Twitter@JonathanTurley.

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Throttling free speech is not the way to fix Facebook and other social media | TheHill - The Hill

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UNH and free speech: Fares well on student survey - The Union Leader

The federal government recently announced it would investigate threats against local school board members. The announcement comes amid growing acrimony between parental groups and public school leaders over issues like face masks and critical race theory. Its part of broader social issuesthe coronavirus pandemic and social justice efforts. Yet, where some see a threatothers see an exercise of free speech.

In recent months, as the public discourse over issues like social justice, race, and the pandemic has deteriorated, so have local school board meetings. In school districts with mask mandates, the climate has been downright hostile.

It feels like were just under constant attack," said Leon Superintendent Rocky Hanna.

According to WUSF Public Media in Tampa, Sarasota School Board Chairwoman Shirley Brown said she recently had more than a dozen people show up at her house, carrying signs calling her a tyrant, and yelling at her through a bull horn to resign.

"I'm not sure if it was the Proud Boys, but the boy with the -- the man with the speaker at my house last night, he had a Proud Boys T-shirt on. And I know they stormed the Capitol with guns. I don't know what they are going to do here," said Brown.

That sort of actionshowing up to people's houses toes the line, said Florida School Board Association Executive Director Andrea Messina.

When it crosses the line is when it moves beyond speech on an issue or topic related to education, and instead, it focuses on a person," she said.

Messina started teaching in 1987 and says she's never seen the education climate this bad.

"Ive spoken to people whove been in education two, to three times longer than I have [and] theyve never seen the climate like this. Ive heard someone liken it to the last time they saw this level in intensity and emotion, was when schools were [de] segregated.

Schools were largely desegregated in the 1960s. As for whats driving todays fury? Messina cant say for sure. But she has her own theories. During Floridas 2004-05 storm season, Hurricane Ivan hit Charlotte County hard. Messina was living there at the time. Businesses and homes were destroyed and the district lost a third of its public schools. Grief counselors were brought in to help.

"[And] one of the things they told us wason the backside of grief, is anger. That those educators needed to be prepared for people to lash out in anger because they had no other way to express it. So when you ask about COVID, I think theres an element of that.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced on October 4th that it would be convening a meeting of federal and local law enforcement agencies to come up with ways to address a rise in criminal conductincluding threats, harassment, and intimidationaimed at local school board members. The announcement drew a rebuke from conservatives like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. State Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran says the DOJ memo treads dangerously close to the constitutional right to free speech, if not trampling on it.

We will not be strong-armed or allow others to be," Corcoran told the State Board of Education. "Should the federal government's efforts even stray slightly from justice, they should prepare for a swift and zealous response.

The school boards are hoping people will begin to calm down.

Ill borrow some of Richard Corcorans words," said Messina. "We need to give each other grace and space."

Leons Hanna has taken most of the verbal abuse leveled at his district. Leon is one of six school districts suing to overturn the states ban on their mandatory mask policies.

There are those haters out there that cuss me and my wife out in the parking lot at the grocery store. But the vast majority of people in our community, I think theyre appreciative of our approach. I really do.

Educators have long asked for more public input. Now theyre getting it. Just not exactly in the way they may have wanted.

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Florida school boards are under fire over COVID, race policies. Where conservatives see free speech, others see threats and harassment - WFSU

Photo: ROBERT SULLIVAN / Staff (Getty Images)

In response to a lawsuit brought by the grieving family of a teenage girl whose suicide was reportedly inspired by the hit show 13 Reasons Why, Netflix is flexing its First Amendment rights to argue that were the complaint to proceed, it would be dangerous to the free speech of artists and Netflix itself.

In new documents filed in a California district court on Wednesday, Netflix invoked Californias anti-SLAPP statute, which gives plaintiffs the right to file a motion to dismiss a complaint brought against any content that might be considered protected speech. In its motion, the streaming giant argues that if a First Amendment challenge to its ability to produce potentially triggering content were to be successful, a long line of creative worksfrom classics like Anna Karenina, Antigone, The Awakening, Madame Bovary, and The Bell Jar, to countless modern works like Dear Evan Hansen, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Wristcutters: A Love Story, and The Virgin Suicideswould also be at risk.

Creators obligated to shield certain viewers from expressive works depicting suicide would inevitably censor themselves to avoid the threat of liability, lawyers for Netflix wrote in the new filings. This would dampen the vigor and limit the variety of public debate ... The First Amendment does not permit such a result.

Based on the young adult novel of the same name by author Jay Asher, 13 Reasons Why depicts the events that precipitate a high school-aged narrators suicide. Although the Netflix suit is being brought by a single grieving family, a study published by the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry reported a 28.9% increase in suicides among Americans aged 10-17 in the month after 13 Reasons Why premieredan increase greater than any other seen in a single monthover the five-year period the researchers studied.

In the motion to strike filed on Wednesday, lawyers for Netflix were careful to note that the platform is not being sued for the content of 13 Reasons Why itself, but rather for its ...failure to adequately warn of its Shows, i.e., its products, dangerous features and for its trove of individualized data about its users to specifically target vulnerable children and manipulate them into watching content that was deeply harmful to themdespite dire warnings about the likely and foreseeable consequences to such children.

G/O Media may get a commission

That recommendation systemwhich is dictated by an algorithmcounts as protected speech, and is tantamount to a news editor deciding to exercise editorial control and judgment, Netflix argues:

The recommendations system, and the display of suggested titles, is speech, the dismissal motion states. Plaintiffs allege that the recommendations here are different because they are dictated by an algorithm. But the fact that the recommendations may be produced algorithmically makes no difference to the analysis. After all, the algorithms themselves were written by human beings...

Netflix and the plaintiffs are due in court on November 16.

If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255).

Continued here:
Netflix Argues Tragic 13 Reasons Why Lawsuit Is a Danger to Free Speech - Gizmodo

When the Chinese dissident Liu Xia was under house arrest with state security guards posted at her front door, she wrote a passionate poem to her husband, Liu Xiaobo: Ill never give up the struggle for freedom from the oppressors jail, but Ill be your willing prisoner for life.

Shilpa Gupta has typed up these translated words on what looks to have been an old-fashioned typewriter. They are pinned to the wall beside her line drawing of the late Liu Xiaobo, who won the Nobel prize for his outspoken defence of human rights, was repeatedly imprisoned for challenging Chinas authoritarian state, and died in custody in 2017. The following year the Chinese state allowed Liu Xia to leave for medical treatment in Germany, presumably to avoid a second outcry. Liu Xias moving poem of protest and love pulls you up. What a story! Where are all the plays and films about this extraordinary couple who told truth to power and spoke their love to one another?

Hollywood may be too keen to stay friends with China to make biopics of dissidents, but Gupta is drawn to such lives. Her moving exhibition at the Barbican speaks up for a cause that seems almost old-fashioned: the free word.

If you are old enough to remember the Berlin Wall you may also remember when dissident writers were revered and free speech was a noble cause. That started to change when Salman Rushdie, who like Gupta was born in Mumbai, faced death for his novel The Satanic Verses and was far from universally defended. Today, without a state such as China needing to do anything, many people find reasons to censor the words of others. Books get pulled, authors ostracised, in what is still officially the democratic west.

So Guptas art has something quietly heroic about it. She reminds us of the infinite preciousness of free expression. Poets and writers who have been imprisoned fill her imagination. Whether theyll shoot me at that point when chaos starts, wonders another of her typescripts, And Ill press my trembling hands to the hole that was my heart These are the words of Irina Ratushinskaya, whose poetry got her sentenced to seven years in a Soviet hard labour camp in 1983. At the foot of her typed message, Gupta explains how it got out of the camp: Scratched on soap, memorised, washed away. Then written on cigarette papers, smuggled outside the prison.

Gupta reminds you how shockingly recent this all is Soviet camps were not something that just existed in Stalins time: poets were going to prison for their words in Communist Europe in the 1980s. Across the gallery is a sculpture that says it all, or rather doesnt: a metal cast of the inside of a human mouth in which you can clearly see the shape of the palette and teeth but not the tongue. It is stopped. Silenced. This ugly chunk of metal looks like it could be a torture instrument specially made for imprisoned writers.

Another sculpture consists of corked bottles lined up in a vitrine, each labelled with a poems title. The piece is called Untitled (Spoken Poem in a Bottle). It deftly politicises Marcel Duchamps celebrated 50 cc of Paris Air: instead of jokily bottling the atmosphere, she sincerely insists these bottles preserve the poetic voice.

For words are sacred to Gupta. Didnt she get the email that liberal humanism is dead? The biggest work here, Guptas low-lit, rhapsodically intoned sound installation called For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit, feels almost nostalgic in its poetry of the human spirit.

A hundred typed fragments are speared on waist-high spikes in the prison-like darkness. Bare lightbulbs hang dimly above. There is an antiquated microphone above each spike. First there is silence. Then a single woman or man intones, declaims, whispers or sings a phrase. More voices repeat it, a chorus gathers strength.

The same texts that Gupta prints up elsewhere in the show are voiced here, among many more. Each was written by an imprisoned writer, today or long ago, in a conversation across time and place. Gupta takes up these isolated poems of the confined and the brutalised, and lends them a chorus of solidarity. It is like Wordsworths poem to the imprisoned Toussaint LOuverture: Theres not a breathing of the common wind / That will forget thee; thou hast great allies

But who does she think shes kidding? A chorus of support for lonely brave voices? It doesnt seem likely. Todays social media chorus is more likely to bay for an offending authors blood. Guptas project matters all the more, then, for its rarity. All she needs is a bit more bite: perhaps to celebrate voices that are provocative right here and now. As it is, her defence of freedom is slightly lacking freedoms danger. It is true and timely nonetheless.

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Shilpa Gupta review rousing reminder that free speech used to be a noble cause - The Guardian

Author and historian Victor Davis Hanson accused Democrats Tuesday of attempting to capitalize on the ongoing Facebook scandal by weaponizing the federal government to police free speech.

During an appearance on "The Ingraham Angle," Hanson argued that President Joe Biden's tanking approval rating, as well as the Democrats' agenda becoming more unpopular, would lead them to try and increase and weaponize the power of the federal government for their gain.

Facebook has become increasingly embroiled in scandal following an investigation by The Wall Street Journal that revealed the company was aware of several metrics, for which it took no action, showing use of its platforms were potentially harmful to the mental health of its users.

"As Joe Biden drops in popularity and as every one of the issues of their agenda become more unpopular, theyre going to try to increase and weaponize the federal government. And thats just because they dont have popular support. And we're already seeing it," Hanson said when host Laura Ingraham asked him why he thought Democrats were speaking out so staunchly against Facebook.

Hanson stated that no one on the left spoke out when riots, arson, looting and violations of quarantine were taking place in 2020 following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer, events that he pointed out were coordinated on social media.

FACEBOOK IS STOPPING INSTAGRAM KIDS, BUT INSISTS ITS A GOOD THING'

"Not one person on the left said, Wow, weve got to stop this," he said. "All of those things are coordinated on social media and nobody said a word."

He added that no one on the left called out Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY., when he appeared to threaten conservative-leaning Supreme Court justices in early 2020, or when former Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., were harassed by activists in videos uploaded to social media.

Hanson argued that Democrats don't win when "empowered middle-class citizens" are informed and are in control of their own administrative state.

"They dont trust those people because they have this top-down utopian agenda that they think they're some type of platonic guardians and they're going to tell us, the stupid people, you do this about quarantine, you do this about vaccinations," Hanson said. "They dont want an empowered citizenry and theyve done their best with demographic change and open borders or from trying to dismantle things like the filibuster, the Electoral College, or the nine-person Supreme Court."

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"The only thing that surprised me is how naive Mark Zuckerberg is," he added. "He does not understand the mind of the left. You are never going to satisfy them unless you give complete fealty and he doesnt understand that, and the more that he compromises with the left, the more that they want from him."

Originally posted here:
Victor Davis Hanson: Dems using Facebook scandal to weaponize government against free speech - Fox News

Laura Ingraham: Conservative speech under threat

Could Facebook outrage from the left just be a clever way to rev up the speech police against alternative points of view ahead of the election - all under the guise of protecting the children?

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," October 5, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: I'm Laura Ingraham. This is THE INGRAHAM ANGLE from Washington tonight. We have a huge show for you. We're going to get right to it, including breaking new details on Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller. That marine jailed for daring to call out his leaders. His attorney joins us exclusively. He'll tell us what's up. But first, the Zuckerberg trap. That's the focus of tonight's angle.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRANCES HAUGEN, FACEBOOK WHISTLEBLOWER: Facebook's internal research is aware that there are a variety of problems facing children on Instagram. They know that severe harm is happening to children. Kids who are bullied on Instagram. The bullying follows them home. It follows them into their bedrooms. Facebook's own research is aware that children's express feelings of loneliness and struggling with these things. I don't understand how Facebook can know all these things and not escalate it to someone like Congress for help and support in navigating these problems.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Appearing on 60 Minutes and in the hearings on the Hill. Well, former Facebook employee Frances Haugen claim that the social media giant was knowingly hurting kids through its algorithms and posted content. Now what's worse, she alleged the company knew about it and chose to do nothing to stop it. Now all of a sudden, the beast first conceived at Harvard by Boy Wonder Mark Zuckerberg was getting hit by a bipartisan onslaught of outrage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We know from what we have learned from her that this is helping us build bipartisan support.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Facebook has put profits ahead of people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My message for Mark Zuckerberg, your time of invading privacy, promoting toxic content and preying on children and teens is over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: There's no one else think the timing of this is just a little too convenient. Biden's on the ropes and the Democrats are barreling toward a brutal beat down in the midterms. Could this just be a clever way to rev up the speech police against alternative points of view ahead of the election, all under the guise of protecting the children?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): The Reconciliation Bill was a combination of my service in Congress because it was about the children, the children, the children, the children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: They love saying the children. Well, let's begin with one basic fact. The Left doesn't care if the culture or big business spreads content that's not appropriate for children, they never have. They literally do not care. In fact, for decades, liberals have defended even celebrated cultural and political forces that harm children. Porn, drugs, gambling, gender bending, school shutdowns, mask mandates, and of course, their holy grail of abortion. Democrats support all of it.

Now some on the Left would prefer if we didn't even have children. A New York Magazine columnist named Emily Holloman (ph), recently called the decision to have children an essentially selfish one done for fulfillment or self-betterment or boredom or peer pressure. We should pray for her because she knows not what she says.

But the point is, after all they've done to damage our children and steal their innocence. We're supposed to trust them on the Facebook and Instagram issue. Color me (ph) skeptical. We've known for many years that parents should keep their kids off smartphones for as long as possible. We need to put our own phones down, myself included and do the hard job of parenting in this very messed up world.

Conservative parents have led the charge on these issues for as long as I can remember. But now suddenly, people like Far Left Senator Ed Markey agrees with staunch Republican Marsha Blackburn. And we're supposed to think that he's trustworthy. Not so fast.

The fact is Republicans may be walking straight into a trap. The Left's real beef with Facebook has nothing to do with the children. The kids are on TikTok, aren't they? The Left doesn't like Facebook, because Facebook has refused to suppress all conservative speech. That's it. The Left has decided to drive conservatives off of the Internet, and they're afraid Facebook won't be sufficiently loyal to their plans.

They actually got away with banning the former president of the United States. And that's not enough power for the Democrats. They're that afraid of voters and free speech. Think about that for a minute. Now this is why globalist don't mind China being in-charge frankly, because if they could, some of these really hardlined Democrats would ban all dissenting opinions on social media. And just like China, they probably call it something like a threat to the social order or a threat to security or threat to overall community or harmony.

Now this all makes sense if your goal is to maintain power by any means necessary, and let's face it, that's all they care about. Facebook could promote live sex acts and how to hunt a Christian instructionals. And the Left would take their side, but because there's still some conservatives on Facebook, some conservatives, the Left wants to shut it down. Democrats have seized upon the current Facebook scandal as an opportunity to silence conservatives for good.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): You know that the insurrection occurred January 6th, do you think that Facebook turned off the safeguards because they weren't costing the company money,

HAUGEN: Facebook changed those safety defaults in the run up to the election because they knew they were dangerous. And because they wanted that growth back. They wanted the acceleration on the platform back after the election, they returned to their original defaults. And the fact that they had to break the glass on January 6th, and turn them back on. I think that's deeply problematic.

KLOBUCHAR: Agree.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: If Democrats had a super majority, they wouldn't work with Republicans at all on these issues, they just pass maybe legislation that has the effect of silencing all dissenting speech. It would be directed broadly across all media and online platforms, but cloaked in terms again, of protecting national security, or their new favorite preventing domestic terrorism.

They would pack the courts to approve that legislation and your freedom of speech or freedom that generations of Americans have fought to preserve would be gone. That's the real goal. A land where we're silenced, and theirs are the only voices heard. But they're willing to get their - they'd take a little bit of time to get there. So, they'll use the bipartisan dust kicked up by one whistleblower as another nudge toward government control of political speech.

Although they dispute the whistleblower's claims, Facebook responded by inviting government regulation, saying we need to create standard rules for the Internet, it's time for Congress to act. Kind of makes perfect sense. Remember, Zuckerberg himself was heavily and personally coordinating with liberal activists and poured hundreds of millions of dollars into local election offices in places like Pennsylvania. And after Zuckerberg was mercilessly scorned by the Left for not silencing Trump in 2016, he kind of tried to make it up to his political comrades by keeping Trump's reach limited.

Prediction, this is not going to end well for conservatives who want to challenge the Left. Now how do I know this? Look who's licking their chops at the prospect of Facebook regulation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Facebook ought to be seriously regulated. It is a new source for a vast part of our country today, if it continues the way it continues, we're going to have January 6th, multiple, multiple times.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It allows lies to be spread unchecked, just like the big lie was spread around the world, in large part because of social media. And none of it is true. We should not allow those things in our society.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: I do like the sweater though. And what about the whistleblower herself? Who is she? What's her motivation for coming forward?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She says she agreed to take the job only if she could work against misinformation. But after this past election, there was a turning point.

HAUGEN: They told us; we're dissolving civic integrity. Like they basically said, good, we made it through the election, there wasn't riots. Fast forward a couple of months, we got the insurrection. And when they got rid of civic integrity, it was the moment where I was like, I don't trust that they're willing to actually invest what needs to be invested to keep Facebook from being dangerous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: The woman's a total ideolog sorry, those comments made my Spidey senses activated. Republicans ought to be very, very careful about how to proceed here. The Left can't be trusted on this issue, and the GOP may end up building a trap that will block conservative speech for years to come. Just look what the Biden's Justice Department is already doing to intimidate parents. We talked about this last night from attending school board meetings and expressing their outrage at the propaganda being taught in public schools.

Remember, when Biden told us that the Justice Department would be independent, what a joke that is. These days the DOJ is just another branch of the DNC. Because the liberal weaklings at the National School Board Association don't want to face criticism for their horrible policies. They're calling on the DOJ to criminalize their political opposition. The only speech they really want to protect is when you nod in agreement with every school decision these petty bureaucrats make.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): You're using the FBI to intervene in school board meetings. Tell me where the line is, with parents expressing their concerns, waiting for hours.

LISA MONACO, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: When and if a situation turns to violence, it's the job of the Justice Department and local law enforcement to address that. The Attorney General's memorandum simply ask the FBI and their counterparts to ensure that state and local law enforcement has an open line of communication to report threats.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: There's so much nonsense in her statement. I don't know where to begin. The FBI exists to investigate whether parents getting mad at a school board meeting rises to the level of intimidation or harassment. That's now a federal matter. Think about all the threats facing America from transnational criminal syndicates, CCP cybercrimes, and open borders and the FBI has time to zero in on what like a 45 year old mom complaining about her son's sophomore English reading list.

The only ones guilty of intimidation here are sitting behind the big desks at the DOJ. Just thank God that Mitch McConnell and thank God for him that Merrick Garland isn't sitting on the Supreme Court today. And by the way, we just learned tonight that the Defense Department is about to turn the screws on its own ranks, subjecting them to continuous vetting, supposedly to stop extremists within the military and other insider threats. And this will include surveillance of social media postings for starters.

We warned you last year that the Left has changed since the days of Clinton and Obama as the pain of their policy sinks in. They've just given up altogether trying to win rhetorically, the voters over, they're not going to do that kind of do that anymore. It's impossible. So, in their desperation, they now believe forced compliance is the only way to go. And the silencing of conservatives is the only way forward. God help any Republican who would assist them. And that's the angle.

Joining me now Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson and California Congressman Devin Nunes. Congressman Nunes, let's start with you, what we're seeing right now, do you see a possible bait and switch being pulled on the Republicans here?

REP. DEVIN NUNES (R-CA): Well, I do because you've kind of stated in your opening, but mostly on Facebook. It's folks that are older, you don't see a lot of kids on Facebook, Instagram, it's kind of the age between 20 to 50 that are on Instagram. There are some teenagers on Instagram. But the big Boogeyman here that nobody's talking about is TikTok, TikTok is where all the kids are, all the little kids and there's no regulation there.

So, I think Republicans should be very careful here. If anything, we ought to be investigating Zuckerberg for the $350 million that he invested into so-called nonprofit groups that got involved in our election. And I think that's where the focus should be. That's what every single member of Congress should be asking on an everyday basis, not fall into some trap of figuring out some scam where we're going to have a bureaucracy of people that are going to just do good things, which is i.e., means going to censor conservatives.

INGRAHAM: And Democrats, Senator Johnson aren't just looking to use social media to silence political dissent, but also scientific dissent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KLOBUCHAR: Last week, YouTube announced it was swiftly banning all anti- vaccine, misinformation. And I've long called on Facebook to take similar steps. We know the effect of this. We know that over half of the people that haven't gotten the vaccines is because of something that they've seen on social media.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Senator Johnson, you are actually blocked yourself from YouTube. What do people have to understand about what's at stake here?

SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): Well, first of all, I completely agree with your assessment. The Left by and large likes media and social media as they are, what they're trying to do is stomp out the last little tidbit of conservative thought that says sneaking through Facebook, and so, we shouldn't fall for it. Mark Zuckerberg as Devin Nunes was talking about, the financing of elections. He pretty well took over the election system in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and had a great deal of influence in four or five other Democrat counties.

So, he obviously is not to try and support free speech. I do agree that he's primarily about making money. And he's craven in terms of how he's willing to do it. But that starts with problem control. And quite honestly, the best pushback is going to be the free market solutions, the competitors to Facebook, but I've never felt there's really a legislative solution because the Democrats like the status quo. They're not going to cooperate with Republicans to really rein in the social media companies because I've never - what liberal misinformation has ever been labeled misinformation by Facebook.

INGRAHAM: Never.

JOHNSON: What they did do by the way is they actually shut down Facebook groups of the vaccine injured so that people lost touch with members of these groups that were suicidal they can no longer counsel. That's what Facebook did in terms of censorship of, I guess, conservative thought. You can't mention the vaccine injuries that we're all aware of.

INGRAHAM: And Facebook's Zuckerberg posted a statement tonight right before the show in response to the hearing. It's very long winded, but it says, in part, similar to balancing other social issues, I don't believe private companies should make all the decisions on their own. That's why we've advocated for updated Internet regs, for several years now. I've written op eds outlining the areas of regulation, we think are most important, related to elections, harmful content, privacy and competition.

Congressman Nunes, does he actually think there's going to be a law written about what you can post regarding an election. Is that what he's getting at.

NUNES: No, what's going on there is he had about 72 lawyers and all of his political people who said, look, this is the place you need to land, we need to land here to say that we're for something and look, you would need 60 votes in the senate to actually pass a law, number one.

Number two, of course, Biden in his regime would love to write the rules. And of course, Zuckerberg would welcome it, because if you have the Attorney General Merrick Garland, drafting the rules, it's got to be perfect for Zuckerberg and Twitter and Google and all of them. So, it's really where they're trying to take us to.

INGRAHAM: Senator Johnson very quickly on this DOD announcement tonight that there will be continual surveillance of social media posts. And that I promise you is just the start of what they're going to do with our troops and other DOD officials, staffers. Real quick, your take on that new development?

JOHNSON: I think we need to be very concerned that our generals are now more concerned with wokeness than they are military readiness, and I think they're purging the military. They're trying to get rid of any conservative. The military, particularly in the higher ranks.

INGRAHAM: It's part of the purge. Isn't it part of the purge here?

JOHNSON: Precisely and that should concern every American.

INGRAHAM: Gentleman, so great to have you both on tonight. Thank you. And the Left really wants you to believe that its motives regarding Facebook are beyond reproach. That's why they're comparing the current effort to taking down insidious industries, like big tobacco, but MSNBC today, let it slip, why this comparison should set off some alarm bells.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The comparisons being made to big tobacco, Big Pharma, others are saying it's actually even more than just what big tobacco went through in the sense that Facebook not only does harm to the people consuming it, but those that are consuming it, then go out and do harm to the greater society, whether it's disinformation on COVID, or the violence that we saw on January 6th.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Joining me now Victor Davis Hanson, Hoover Institution Senior Fellow, author of the fab new book, The Dying Citizen. And it just came out and you were on my podcast for a whole hour, Victor. It was so great to talk to you for a long period of time. But look, you see right through this, with this noble pursuit of the Democrats, suddenly they care about the kids. Victor, what's really happening here, the carcinogen of the conservative thought,

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, HOOVER INSTITUTION SENIOR FELLOW: Well, two things, I think. One is, as Joe Biden drops in popularity, and as every one of the issues of their agenda become more unpopular, they're going to try to increase and weaponize the federal government. And that's just because they don't have popular support. And we're already seeing it.

When you talk about Facebook, and use for improper purposes, we had 120 continuous days of riot, of arson and looting in all of those congregations, violating quarantines, violating mass, burning down stores, attacking federal property. They were coordinated on social media. Now one person on the Left said wow, we've got to stop this. It was injuries or when Chuck Schumer goes outside the Supreme Court and really threatens the justice, you will pay Justice Gorsuch, you will pay - that was - all of those things are so coordinated on social media, nobody said a word.

And the same thing is when we see - saw Jeff Flake swarmed by people in an elevator during the Kavanaugh hearings or even posting that atrocious video of Senator Sinema in a bathroom being confronted by--

INGRAHAM: But what do they want to get at. Victor, make it make it clear to our viewers. You wrote a whole book about the dying citizens.

HANSON: Yes.

INGRAHAM: Are there tactics, the tactics of what we have had understood to be an American citizen interested in an exchange of ideas?

HANSON: No, because when they have empowered middle class citizens that are informed and believe in borders, and they believe that tribalism is secondary to their identity, and they're in control, they're not controlled by, but they're in control of their administrative state. They don't win because you have a lot of enlightened inductive thinking citizens autonomous and they don't trust those people because they have this top down utopian agenda that they think there's some type of platonic guardians and they're going to tell us the stupid people you have to do this about quarantine, you do this of vaccination.

If you have COVID and you have antibodies, that doesn't matter. And they don't want an empowered citizenry. And they've done their best either through demographic change and open borders, or from trying to dismantle things like the filibuster or the electoral college or the nine person Supreme Court.

INGRAHAM: Are you surprised Victor about how obvious their tactics have become. I mean it's pretty obvious and even if you're a casual observer of politics, what this Facebook thing was really all about today. I didn't buy that woman, I'm sorry, my antenna went off about that I'm sure she's - whatever - maybe some of its true, maybe some it's not, but these people don't care about the kid's innocence or protecting the kid's innocence. If they did, they wouldn't have an open border and be pushing protections for the porn industry and mainlining pot, other drugs across the country.

HANSON: The only thing - Laura, the only thing that surprised me is how naive Mark Zuckerberg is, I think after he's infused maybe $500 million. And he thought that would be enough or he tried to put Parler out of business along with that consortium of social media. Or he banned Donald Trump, but not the Taliban from social media.

INGRAHAM: Not good enough.

HANSON: That was not good enough. He does not understand the mind of the Left. You're never going to satisfy them unless you give complete fealty and obsequiousness and he doesn't understand that and the more that he compromises with the Left, the more that they want more from him.

INGRAHAM: Well, Victor, he did a pretty good job when he went over there to China. Remember, he jogged in those short shorts, he did that speaking Mandarin. He tried to do it pretty well over there. Victor, congrats on the book, The Dying Citizen. It's fantastic.

HANSON: Thank you, Laura.

INGRAHAM: Joe Biden claims that his plan to explode the federal budget is all about just reversing American decline. Newt Gingrich has that. Plus, Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller may be out of the brig, but he's not out of legal trouble. His attorney joins us exclusively in moments to discuss what's next, don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: These bills are not about Left versus Right. These bills are about competitiveness versus complacency. They're about opportunity versus decay to support these investments is to create a rising America, America's movie to pose these investments is to be complicit in America's decline.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Well, that was Joe Biden desperately pitching this multi-trillion dollar boondoggle to unions in Michigan today. But of course, the truth is, few have done more to facilitate America's decline than Joe Biden himself.

Remember, he voted to normalize trade relations with China and he supported its entry into the WTO. That costs us millions of jobs. For some Republicans, a lot of them supported it too. But now Joe wants to cause more misery for all working Americans by taxing and spending our economy into oblivion. What's even more worrisome is that Manchin seems to be cracking. We've predicted this. I knew it would happen.

Today, he opened the door to $2.2 trillion in spending. What happened at 1.5? Joining me now, Newt Gingrich, Fox News Contributor, former Speaker of the House, also the author of the upcoming book, Beyond Biden, Rebuilding the America We Love.

Newt, I always knew Manchin was going to be a soft touch here. I mean, they showed up on those kayaks around his yacht, and he just completely melted. Is there any room for - is there any room for hope here that this will blow up?

NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Well, I think it partly depends on whether or not the really committed big government socialists put their foot down. Depending on how they design the bill, can they really get what the Left wants at 2.2 billion or whatever it is? I recently wrote a newsletter and said, there are no moderates here. There's a choice between the timid big government socialists and the bold big government socialists, and then Manchin turns right around and proves what I was saying.

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'The Ingraham Angle' on Facebook whistleblower testimony, conservatives' free speech - Fox News

On Monday, Facebook and its associated social media sites including Instagram and WhatsApp went down for about six hours. The outage came at a time when news was circulating about a whistleblower who worked for Facebook revealing that the company put profits over public good by allowing misinformation, hate, and violence to spread on its platform. The whistleblower, 37-year-old Frances Haugen, released tens of thousands of pages of internal documents showing that Facebook knew about the company benefiting from these negative effects on society, but covered the whole thing up. Haugen told CBSs 60 Minutes, the thing I saw at Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook, and Facebook over and over again chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money. Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp not working yesterday is supposedly unrelated to the bombshell report, but the timing is leaving many suspicious. Facebooks Vice President of Infrastructure Santosh Janardhan said the outage was due to configuration changes on the backbone routers. But skeptics believe the sites were brought down specifically to prevent information about the leaked documents from spreading on its platform. If there is a connection it remains unproven, but perhaps there will be more to learn about these two stories and a possible link between them in the coming days.

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Facebook Suffers Total Outage As Whistleblower is Revealed - Free Speech TV

Dems undermining our democracyRaymond Harris Sept. 25 letter (Republican positions are anti-democratic) must be a joke.Lets start with vaccinations. Trump got them and encouraged them while Democrats openly said they would not take a Trump vaccine.He says the GOP wants to control womens bodies and health care simply because they want to stop legal murder. This while they are forcing you to get vaccinated. Is that not controlling your health care?As for the pandemic, the Democrats used it to violate voter laws, control all media, suppress free speech and shut down state economies all to hurt Trump.Republicans never supported the made-up insurrection, while Democrats supported year-long riots, looting and burning of cities all to hurt Trump.Voter ID is suppressive in the liberal world where undocumented immigrants, and really, the entire world, should get to vote.He vilifies the GOP for being overwhelmingly White while brutally attacking any non-White for joining the party. You want real history taught, then educate our kids on the racist history of Democrats. Every day, Democrats are in power they erode your freedoms and yet they want you to believe the GOP is anti-democratic. Ask yourself why the one party that hates the Constitution, and believes in socialism, is pro-democracy!The Democrats only need democracy long enough for you to vote it out. Sadly you probably will.Dave DankanichGalway

It wont be easy to undo Trump impactHealth care workers we called heroes are being harassed and attacked.Elected school board members screamed at and threatened for trying to protect our children.Obscene signage is placed on cars and lawns in the name of free speech. We shake our heads and wonder how did we get to this low place?The obvious answer is Donald Trump. He made rude, obnoxious behavior acceptable when he made fun of the disabled, and his disciples all laughed.Trump made harassment acceptable when he bragged about his treatment of women, and again his disciples all laughed.He downplayed the seriousness of the deadly pandemic, belittling the science trying to help, and his disciples nodded in bovine agreement.Trump reversed years of effort to protect our environment, and his rich, greedy disciples applauded.He personally encouraged the violent overthrow of honestly elected officials, not just in our Capitol but everywhere, and his disciples then felt entitled to intimidate everyone else to their way of thinking.America has struggled for decades to end hate and bigotry, and yet in only a few short years, one man has empowered these dogs of war to attack the current administration which inherited his hot mess.It will take hard work and perseverance to diminish the harmful effects of the Donald Trump legacy.We can only hope its somehow possible and pray its not too late.Virginia NewtonBurnt Hills

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Letters to the Editor Thursday, Oct. 7 - The Daily Gazette

In this clip from #RandiRhodes, Rand discusses the testimony of #Facebookwhistleblower Frances Haugen in front of Congress.

The Randi Rhodes Show delivers smart, forward, free-thinking, entertaining, liberal news and opinion that challenge the status quo and amplifies free speech.

Dedicated to social justice, Randi puts her reputation on the line for the truth. Committed to the journalistic standards that corporate media often ignores, The Randi Rhodes Show takes enormous pride in bringing the power of knowledge to her viewers.

Watch The Randi Rhodes Show every weekday at 3 pm ET on Free Speech TV & catch up with clips from the program down below!

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People Are Loving The Poison - Free Speech TV