Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan is clutching her pearls about the court’s decision freeing non-union employees from paying union dues, worried about “weaponizing the First Amendment.”
Meanwhile, in the #Resistance capital of the nation, the politicians are proposing legislation that is essentially a weapon at the heart of the First Amendment’s free speech protections.
California is considering creating a “fake news” advisory group in order to monitor information posted and spread on social media.Senate Bill 1424 would require the California Attorney General to create the advisory committee by April 1, 2019. It would need to consist of at least one person from the Department of Justice, representatives from social media providers, civil liberties advocates, and First Amendment scholars.The advisory group would be required to study how false information is spread online and come up with a plan for social media platforms to fix the problem. The Attorney General would then need to present that plan to the Legislature by December 31, 2019. The group would also need to come up with criteria establishing what is “fake news” versus what is inflammatory or one-sided.
Jarrett Stepman, an editor at The Daily Signal, notes that this approach is a European import.
…This bill mirrors the trend in Europe, where government commissions to police speech and the news are becoming common.California, emboldened by a stridently progressive Legislature, is trying to bring these Orwellian fake news panels to the United States.Americans should leave this trend to the other side of the Atlantic.The Founding Fathers were well aware of both the strengths and limitations of the press. While fake, misleading, and dishonest news was as common in their day as in ours, they understood that containing speech through governmental force was a dangerous proposition.
Conservatives on Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter have faced enhanced scrutiny, more rigorous disciplinary measures for rule violations, and shadow-banning from the social media platforms to begin with. Professor Jacobson could never resolve our issue with Amazon, after years of being a very active associate site.
I cannot fathom why this #DeathPanel for real news is needed. Additionally, the legislation would require the social media platform have “Fact Checkers.”
We have chronicled the misses by one of the left’s most revered “fact-checkers”, Snopes. I look forward to seeing the alternative facts that will be used to nix stories not favorable to the state’s progressive politicians and bureaucrats!
I am not the only one with issues with SB 1424, either.
What Senate Bill 1424 really shows is how desperate the Democrats are to regain control of the narrative, as more and more of their voters continue to #WalkAway.
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