Hillary Clinton Is Worried - This whole free-speech thing could get totally out of hand.

Two events on Saturday brought home the threat to free speech in the United 
States and the horrific cost to the entire world when free speech is 
suppressed in the United States. Of course as humans we enjoy a right to 
express ourselves that no government can take away. This fundamental right, 
codified in the First Amendment to our Constitution, is also essential to a 
thriving, prosperous society. Without the unfettered ability to identify 
problems and propose solutions, civilization cannot advance.

Look around the world at governments that have denied the right to free 
speech and review a catalog of human deprivation and misery. Now consider how 
our generally open marketplace of ideas has enabled the exposure and defeat 
of falsehood, prejudice, superstition and, to use the politically fashionable 
term, misinformation. Sunshine remains the best intellectual disinfectant.

So perhaps it’s no coincidence that today the politicians who are most 
zealous in demanding the power to silence misinformation promoted by others 
have been peddling a great deal of it themselves. Former Secretary of State 
Hillary Clinton, who was the client for a project that created perhaps the 
most poisonous misinformation in the history of presidential politics, 
continues her campaign to empower the federal government to censor 
communications.

Recently a Journal editorial noted Mrs. Clinton’s suggestion that criminal 
charges might be in order against Americans exercising their First Amendment 
rights in political discussions.

On Saturday Mrs. Clinton appeared on CNN to present her censorship campaign 
as necessary to protect children from dangerous content online. Certainly 
there is a lot of such content online. But her radical remedy would suppress 
vast swaths of content whether or not children are involved.

A federal law known as Section 230 has enabled the rise of social media by 
letting tech platforms make good-faith efforts to remove objectionable 
content without becoming liable for everything that individual users post. 
Take away Section 230 and, for example, the business model of Elon Musk’s X 
is destroyed. Social media platforms would be sued into oblivion by trial 
lawyers. Here’s what Mrs. Clinton said, according to CNN’s Saturday 
transcript:

     We should be, in my view, repealing something called Section 230, 
     which gave, you know, platforms on the internet immunity because they 
     were thought to be just pass-throughs. That they shouldn’t be judged 
     for the content that is posted.

     But we now know that that was an overly simple view… if they don’t 
     moderate and monitor the content we lose total control…

     We need to remove the immunity from liability and we need to have 
     guardrails. We need regulation.

We need guardrails against political actors seeking more control over our 
speech, even—perhaps _especially_ -- in cases in which they claim to be 
acting on behalf of our kids.

Back in 2019 this column noted that while serving yet another batch of 
freshly baked misinformation, Mrs. Clinton addressed the rise of media 
competition. She was speaking on a podcast and waxing nostalgic about the 
media environment when she worked as a young congressional aide on the 
Watergate inquiry:

     Back in Nixon days there were just three commercial broadcast 
     television networks, plus dominant newspapers. Now, she says, “I 
     think it’s a lot harder for Americans to know what they’re supposed 
     to believe.”

     She tells the story of dealing with questions from reporter Sam 
     Donaldson in the 1970s, rather than today’s myriad online media 
     competitors. “It was a much more controllable environment,” she 
     laments.

Saturday also brought a reminder of the terrible cost in 2020, when 
discussion of public health became a controllable environment for the leaders 
of large institutions. Sad to say, even before the Biden-Harris 
administration began pressuring social media companies to censor Americans 
discussing Covid policy, the companies were doing too much of it on their 
own.

On Saturday at a Stanford University conference on pandemic policy, Dr. Scott 
Atlas, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force in 2020, described 
the pressure at places like Stanford to conform to views about Covid that 
turned out to be disastrously wrong. The Stanford Review has published the 
remarks of Dr. Atlas. Here’s an excerpt in which he discusses the response at 
Stanford and other universities when he challenged the false consensus:

     Censorship: character assassination, intimidation, and censure.

     It was also nuanced – being told “stop writing x” and “write an 
     apology for x”; colleagues told “stop defending Scott”; no more 
     speaking at institutional events; and more.

     And understand clearly – when you censor health policy, it’s not 
     simply an abstract evil, a less-than-ideal environment for diverse 
     views. People die. And people died from the censorship of correct 
     health policy.

     Why is Censorship used? To shut someone up, yes; but more importantly, 
     to deceive the public – to stop others from hearing, to convince a 
     naïve public there is a “consensus”.

     But TRUTH is not a Team Sport. Truth is not determined by consensus, 
     or by numbers of people who agree, or by titles.  It is discovered by 
     debate, proven by critical analysis of evidence. Arguments are won by 
     data and logic, not by personal attack or censoring others.

     THAT is why lockdowners – at Stanford and elsewhere – needed censorship 
     and propaganda; they couldn’t win on the data; they needed to 
     delegitimize and demonize opposing views as highly dangerous, to 
     convince the public.

     And especially their LIE – the strawman “herd immunity strategy” that 
     if you are against lockdowns, you are for “letting it rip”.  I never 
     advised “let it rip”. It was never even mentioned, not once, in the 
     White House – And that is not targeted protection!
 
     We now have a frightening crisis of both competence AND integrity. 
     Lockdowners will never admit they were wrong – on lockdowns, schools, 
     masks, & vax mandates – and that I and others here were right – because 
     that would take integrity.   

     But TRUTH cannot be changed. Churchill was right – “Truth is 
     incontrovertible. Panic may resent it. Ignorance may deride it. 
     Malice may distort it. But there it is.”

To his credit, Stanford President Jonathan Levin did not shy away from the 
discussion but showed up to speak and said:

     We have many issues today at Stanford, and on other campuses, where 
     views are divided, and in some cases, like this one, where feelings 
     are raw.

     Yet I believe we need to make every effort to get people who disagree, 
     even sharply, in dialogue with one another. I believe it’s essential 
     for us to do that as members of the faculty and university leaders – 
     not just because it’s a way to advance knowledge, but because we need 
     to model that behavior if we want to expect it from our students. And 
     in today’s world, we absolutely need to ask and expect our students to 
     be able to engage with, listen to, and debate with people with whom 
     they disagree. My view is that we need to err on the side of talking 
     to one another.

     So I hope today’s conference will come off in a way that involves just 
     that – thoughtful and robust discussion across different perspectives. 
     I hope it yields some important insights about future pandemic policy – 
     we certainly need that. Perhaps it does even bridge a few divides among 
     those in the room.

     And I hope even more that all of you will join in the larger project of 
     trying to make Stanford and other campuses forums for the type of robust 
     and thoughtful discussion that is at the heart of universities when 
     we’re at our best.


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"The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,"
        -- DoJ-certified imbecile Joe Biden