Just days after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the landmark Murthy v. Missouri free speech case, 60 minutes came out shilling for the Censorship Industrial Complex.
I want to provide a critique of that segment.
Let me preface it with this:
The biggest cheerleaders of the Censorship Industrial Complex are the most powerful and prolific purveyors of “mis-, dis-, and mal-information.”
Censoring their dissenters serves their politics and ultimately their business model – but it disserves our republic.
The censorship regime is engaged in a full-scale PR offensive because it’s been caught — and its only defense is to argue that its critics are evil, dangerous, and/or stupid, thereby justifying still more pervasive censorship.
The thing is, if you can’t or won’t compete on a truly free and open playing field, that shows you lack confidence in winning the War of Ideas on the merits.
Now to the segment: Lesley Stahl — a Russiagate superspreader — herself distorts the piece from the jump by omission by failing to discuss the Murthy v. Missouri case. That case asks whether government converted social media platforms into government speech police in violation of the First Amendment by coercing, cajoling, and colluding with them to censor views the feds disapproved of on core political speech.
Even when Stahl gets to the meat of the free speech argument, she doesn’t discuss the findings in the case underpinning the bulk of our knowledge regarding the Censorship Industrial Complex, and that ought to be read in conjunction with the House Weaponization Subcommittee’s additional critical reporting, barely acknowledged, to fully understand the comprehensive taxpayer-funded effort to eviscerate the First Amendment.
Stahl reports under the assumption that social media censorship squads are omniscient arbiters of truth.
“Misinformation academic researchers” is one way to characterize the folks who, often government-funded and/or ex-government-staffed, coordinated with federal officials and the platforms to develop, advocate for, and get social media companies to change terms of service aimed to restrict protected speech particularly around elections; surveilled en masse our speech for violations of their desired standards; flagged it to the platforms for suppression, and got the platforms to take such speech down at high batting averages.
The “misinformation researchers” weren’t passive observers. They were participants in a conspiracy to widen censorship rules, mass-surveil and flag “violations,” and get platforms to censor the content they disapproved of.
Stahl defends the censorship regime by arguing it only batted .333. That doesn’t really account for the size, scope, and scale of the censorship though – at the levels of millions of impacted posts give the impact of the content moderation rule changes, and application. And it’s a useful dodge.
The question is, had not there been a Censorship Industrial Complex coercing, cajoling, and colluding with the social media platforms, would our speech have been abridged? One First Amendment violation — let alone First Amendment violations numbering in the millions of posts and accounts — is one too many.
Stahl of course cherrypicks her examples to defend the Censorship Industrial Complex, rather than drawing on voluminous evidence showing platforms purged protected speech en masse at behest of government.
She makes very clear that the American people can’t be allowed to decide for themselves how to discern fact from fiction, right from wrong.
That paternalistic attitude pervades the entirety of the federal government, think-tank world, press, and as I observed, sadly, seemingly a majority of the Supreme Court.
Stahl also totally ignores Americans’ concerns with the integrity of the 2020 election — massive percentages are reasonably skeptical per polling of the first mass mail-in election in history; where they were mass-censored for having questions about it and the election policies many imposed by executive diktat in the run-up to it; in which there were all manner of statistical anomalies in outcomes; where vote-counting stopped in the middle of the night and results didn’t come in for days; and in which the related court cases were nearly uniformly dismissed on technical matters rather than the merits.
I got censored for pointing out those reasonable concerns under the censorship regime.
Turning to another matter in the segment, naturally, in classic form, 60 Minutes attacks X because it’s one corner of the digital public square the censorship doesn’t fully control — limited narrative control is a threat to their power and prerogative.
The segment should be understood as one part of a comprehensive push we’ve discussed before against Elon Musk — who had the gall to take a surveillance and censorship asset out of the hands of the NatSec/intel apparatus and re-convert it to something resembling a free speech platform.
Of course, Stahl concludes with the whopper that those critical of and scrutinizing the Censorship Industrial Complex are harming its participants — engaging in “harassment” — which of course is part of the underlying justification for the censorship, that there’s a nexus between speech the censorship regime doesn’t like and harm.
The fear that censors are being chilled though, as House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan rightly notes in the segment, gets things completely backwards. They not only chilled but censored us and they got caught.
Like Justice Jackson in oral arguments, the Censorship Industrial Complex and its cheerleaders — a media protected by the First Amendment — turn the First Amendment on its head to defend the gross violations of it that the Censorship Industrial Complex has engaged in.
Censors are not victims. They are aggressors.
They have violated our rights.
They need to be held accountable.
And not a single taxpayer dollar should be used to silence ourselves.
Ben Weingarten
Federalist Senior Contributor; Claremont Institute Fellow
Commentary
Our commentary partners will help you reach your own conclusions on complex topics.
Is the US looking for a war?
8 hrs ago
Peter Zeihan
How future generations could shift US support for Israel
Yesterday
Peter Zeihan
Why election of European Commission president is so important
Wednesday
Peter Zeihan
‘Both completely corrupt’: What Americans think of Biden, Trump
Tuesday
Dr. Frank Luntz
’60 Minutes’ tries but fails to tackle disinformation crisis
Ben Weingarten
Federalist Senior Contributor; Claremont Institute Fellow
By Straight Arrow News
On March 24, “60 Minutes” published a segment examining the relationship between government authorities and private social media companies regarding the moderation of potentially dangerous content on popular social media platforms. The episode also examined how disinformation spreads, what makes social media users vulnerable to false information and how users can take steps to combat it.
Straight Arrow News contributor Ben Weingarten critiques the episode and its host, Lesley Stahl, and argues that Stahl glosses over several talking points from the political Right. Weingarten also accuses media experts and scholars of contributing to disinformation themselves instead of fighting against it.
Just days after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the landmark Murthy v. Missouri free speech case, “60 Minutes” came out shilling for the censorship-industrial complex. I want to provide a critique of that segment. Let me preface it with this: The biggest cheerleaders of the censorship-industrial complex are the most powerful and prolific purveyors of mis-, dis-, and mal-information. Censoring their dissenters serves their politics and ultimately their business model, but it disserves our republic.
The censorship regime is engaged in a full-scale PR offensive, first in the places like The Washington Post and The New York Times, and then on “60 Minutes,” because it’s been caught — and its only defense is to argue that its critics are evil, dangerous and/or stupid, thereby justifying still more pervasive censorship. The thing is, if you can’t or won’t compete on a truly free and open playing field, that shows you lack confidence in winning the war of ideas on the merits.
Now to the segment: Lesley Stahl — a Russiagate superspreader — herself distorts the piece from the jump by omission by failing to discuss the Murthy v. Missouri case. That case asks whether government converted social media platforms into government speech police in violation of the First Amendment by coercing, cajoling, and colluding with them to censor views the feds disapproved of on core political speech.
Just days after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the landmark Murthy v. Missouri free speech case, 60 minutes came out shilling for the Censorship Industrial Complex.
I want to provide a critique of that segment.
Let me preface it with this:
The biggest cheerleaders of the Censorship Industrial Complex are the most powerful and prolific purveyors of “mis-, dis-, and mal-information.”
Censoring their dissenters serves their politics and ultimately their business model – but it disserves our republic.
The censorship regime is engaged in a full-scale PR offensive because it’s been caught — and its only defense is to argue that its critics are evil, dangerous, and/or stupid, thereby justifying still more pervasive censorship.
The thing is, if you can’t or won’t compete on a truly free and open playing field, that shows you lack confidence in winning the War of Ideas on the merits.
Now to the segment: Lesley Stahl — a Russiagate superspreader — herself distorts the piece from the jump by omission by failing to discuss the Murthy v. Missouri case. That case asks whether government converted social media platforms into government speech police in violation of the First Amendment by coercing, cajoling, and colluding with them to censor views the feds disapproved of on core political speech.
Even when Stahl gets to the meat of the free speech argument, she doesn’t discuss the findings in the case underpinning the bulk of our knowledge regarding the Censorship Industrial Complex, and that ought to be read in conjunction with the House Weaponization Subcommittee’s additional critical reporting, barely acknowledged, to fully understand the comprehensive taxpayer-funded effort to eviscerate the First Amendment.
Stahl reports under the assumption that social media censorship squads are omniscient arbiters of truth.
“Misinformation academic researchers” is one way to characterize the folks who, often government-funded and/or ex-government-staffed, coordinated with federal officials and the platforms to develop, advocate for, and get social media companies to change terms of service aimed to restrict protected speech particularly around elections; surveilled en masse our speech for violations of their desired standards; flagged it to the platforms for suppression, and got the platforms to take such speech down at high batting averages.
The “misinformation researchers” weren’t passive observers. They were participants in a conspiracy to widen censorship rules, mass-surveil and flag “violations,” and get platforms to censor the content they disapproved of.
Stahl defends the censorship regime by arguing it only batted .333. That doesn’t really account for the size, scope, and scale of the censorship though – at the levels of millions of impacted posts give the impact of the content moderation rule changes, and application. And it’s a useful dodge.
The question is, had not there been a Censorship Industrial Complex coercing, cajoling, and colluding with the social media platforms, would our speech have been abridged? One First Amendment violation — let alone First Amendment violations numbering in the millions of posts and accounts — is one too many.
Stahl of course cherrypicks her examples to defend the Censorship Industrial Complex, rather than drawing on voluminous evidence showing platforms purged protected speech en masse at behest of government.
She makes very clear that the American people can’t be allowed to decide for themselves how to discern fact from fiction, right from wrong.
That paternalistic attitude pervades the entirety of the federal government, think-tank world, press, and as I observed, sadly, seemingly a majority of the Supreme Court.
Stahl also totally ignores Americans’ concerns with the integrity of the 2020 election — massive percentages are reasonably skeptical per polling of the first mass mail-in election in history; where they were mass-censored for having questions about it and the election policies many imposed by executive diktat in the run-up to it; in which there were all manner of statistical anomalies in outcomes; where vote-counting stopped in the middle of the night and results didn’t come in for days; and in which the related court cases were nearly uniformly dismissed on technical matters rather than the merits.
I got censored for pointing out those reasonable concerns under the censorship regime.
Turning to another matter in the segment, naturally, in classic form, 60 Minutes attacks X because it’s one corner of the digital public square the censorship doesn’t fully control — limited narrative control is a threat to their power and prerogative.
The segment should be understood as one part of a comprehensive push we’ve discussed before against Elon Musk — who had the gall to take a surveillance and censorship asset out of the hands of the NatSec/intel apparatus and re-convert it to something resembling a free speech platform.
Of course, Stahl concludes with the whopper that those critical of and scrutinizing the Censorship Industrial Complex are harming its participants — engaging in “harassment” — which of course is part of the underlying justification for the censorship, that there’s a nexus between speech the censorship regime doesn’t like and harm.
The fear that censors are being chilled though, as House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan rightly notes in the segment, gets things completely backwards. They not only chilled but censored us and they got caught.
Like Justice Jackson in oral arguments, the Censorship Industrial Complex and its cheerleaders — a media protected by the First Amendment — turn the First Amendment on its head to defend the gross violations of it that the Censorship Industrial Complex has engaged in.
Censors are not victims. They are aggressors.
They have violated our rights.
They need to be held accountable.
And not a single taxpayer dollar should be used to silence ourselves.
‘Deep State’ failed to protect Trump
The stated mission of the United States Secret Service is to “ensure the safety and security of our protectees.” However, on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, the Secret Service allowed a lone would-be assassin to fire a shot at former President Donald Trump, grazing his ear with a bullet. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned…
Tuesday
The Regime once again meddling in election to hurt Trump
On Tuesday, July 9, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a cybersecurity advisory warning companies about a Russian social media bot farm. U.S. officials told reporters that these Russian bots are targeting U.S. voter groups in key swing states and implied that the goal is to undermine President Joe Biden. Watch the above video as…
Jul 16
Clarence Thomas has it right on presidential immunity case
On July 1, the United States Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 majority opinion for Trump v. United States that American presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for actions that fall within their constitutional duties. The ruling asserts that evidence of official criminal acts committed by a president cannot even be presented in any U.S.…
Jul 9
SCOTUS’ Murthy v. Missouri ruling will live in infamy
On June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the federal government in the Murthy v. Missouri case regarding official communications between the government and social media platforms. In a 6-3 decision written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the court stated that the plaintiffs did not have the legal standing to seek an injunction against…
Jul 2
Anti-Trumpers care about power, not democracy
News commentators across the political spectrum — including some contributors here at Straight Arrow News — have warned Americans about Donald Trump’s aspirations to make himself a dictator and effectively end the American republic if he regains power in November. Their warnings cite Trump’s own legal arguments, public statements and past behavior, including the attempted…
Jun 25
Underreported stories from each side
Group accuses Pa. teachers union of illegally using money to back Shapiro’s 2022 campaign
8 sources | 0% from the left
Getty Images
Some House Republicans slam Vance as Trump’s VP pick: ‘The worst choice’
8 sources | 0% from the right
Reuters
Latest Stories
Congress still trying to figure out how to reduce wasteful military spending
Watch 2:29
3 hrs ago
US Navy, Air Force making waves with new weapons at RIMPAC
Watch 6:03
3 hrs ago
Israeli PM Netanyahu meets with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
Watch 2:54
3 hrs ago
Growing US nuclear power resurgence reaches the nation’s heartland
Watch 1:19
3 hrs ago
Beer from the sun, other solar thermal projects get government funding
Watch 2:04
3 hrs ago
Popular Opinions
In addition to the facts, we believe it’s vital to hear perspectives from all sides of the political spectrum.
Trump has an excellent opportunity with Black voters
8 hrs ago
Star Parker
Don’t fall for GOP’s cheap racist attacks on Kamala Harris
9 hrs ago
Dr. Rashad Richey
Americans must reject Trump to defend our democracy
Yesterday
Jordan Reid
Why all the changes in European parliamentary governments?
Wednesday
Newt Gingrich