It’s a known fact that former Vice President Joe Biden is angry with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. You see, Zuckerberg allowed President Trump and his allies to publish ads against the Biden campaign on Facebook — like every other campaign. Democrats have been defeated by social media campaigns before, and Biden isn’t willing to let that happen again.
However, the way in which the former VP wants to get even will not only suppress shady information about Joe and Hunter Biden’s shady dealings in Ukraine and China. It will literally shut down free speech on the internet as we know it.
In a recent interview with the New York Times, Biden stated that he believed Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act should be immediately revoked. This all-important section of the law, which is commonly considered to be the foundation of free speech online, stipulates that third-party platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube can’t be held legally liable for content that is posted on their sites.
Without this stipulation, social media giants would not be able to allow users to post their points of view, creating an empty void where vibrant conversations used to take place. Even website hosting services could be affected as they could be taken to court if someone uses their services to set up a site that offends someone else.
Naturally, Biden neither understands nor cares about the damage that the revocation of Section 230 would do. The only thing he can see is that social media sites are being used to propagate “falsehoods”, aka information that the Biden campaign doesn’t like.
The Obama-era number two went on to imply that social media sites should have “gatekeepers” — just as the New York Times and other newspapers have editors. The latter statement makes little sense given the fact that the New York Times, unlike Facebook, is a newspaper with the primary purpose of disseminating news. Facebook, on the other hand, is a social media site where people share information on topics ranging from caring for cats to the viability of Medicare for All.
Social media sites aren’t supposed to have editors, just as a group of people discussing current events together don’t need an official “moderator.”
The call to take down Section 230 is a dangerous one, as it would give social media giants the job of policing content online. Given the fact that sites such as Twitter, Pinterest, and even Facebook have a track record for censoring controversial content that doesn’t agree with a liberal agenda, it’s not hard to see how freedom of speech would immediately become a thing of the past if social media giants could be sued by snowflakes who don’t like something they read, viewed or listened to on any one of these sites.
Sadly, many other Democrats share the former VP’s point of view, imperiling the free speech rights of hundreds of millions across the nation.
