Arrr! 'Tis a brawlin' scandal! The government and its scurvy dogs plot to silence us landlubbers!
2023-12-07
Avast ye, me hearties! The House Judiciary Committee and Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government hath unveiled a scroll on censorship, mark me words. Aye, 'tis a tale worth tellin', me lads!
A bombshell revelation has exposed the government's efforts to censor the American people, and although it may not come as a surprise, it is nonetheless chilling. Federal officials have been pressuring Big Tech to censor constitutionally protected speech for some time now. Recently, the House Judiciary Committee and Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released a report uncovering the collusion between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Global Engagement Center (GEC), and Stanford University, among other entities, to censor speech leading up to the 2020 election.To disguise their efforts to violate our First Amendment rights, the government established an entity called the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) to outsource its censorship endeavors. Government officials and federally funded organizations would flag posts they deemed "misinformation" to EIP analysts, who would then flag them for social media platforms. The report clearly shows that EIP was created at the request of DHS/CISA, and documents prove that CISA had direct access to the EIP's inner workings.
What's not surprising is that the EIP focused its targeting exclusively on Republicans, libertarians, and conservatives. According to the report, the EIP reported back to the federal government that it had successfully convinced Big Tech to censor Americans' political speech.
This revelation is not an isolated incident. Social media platforms like YouTube have been involved in censorship for some time. When I used the platform to educate the public about the potential dangers of relying on ineffective cloth masks to prevent the transmission of COVID-19, my video was taken down, and I was suspended from uploading additional videos for a week.
Former Facebook executive Alex Stamos testified to the House Judiciary Committee and Select Subcommittee, revealing that the government did not simply ask nicely when demanding social media companies censor speech. Stamos stated that executives at public companies understand that various parts of the government can punish them for what they deem appropriate activity.
Even Stanford initially resisted cooperating with demands to provide misinformation reports. However, they eventually complied and handed over thousands of links to social media posts collected by the EIP.
It is high time that we put an end to the establishment's campaign to crush dissent and opposing viewpoints. That is why I introduced the Free Speech Protection Act, which seeks to prohibit federal employees and contractors from using their positions to censor protected speech. The legislation imposes penalties for those who violate this rule and allows private citizens to sue the government and executive branch officials for infringing upon their First Amendment rights.
To protect free speech, Congress must take action to stop the government's collusion with Big Tech and other media organizations. We must pass the Free Speech Protection Act.