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White House Seeks Social Media Sob Stories from Conservative Snowflakes
At the fine publication, Reason [reason.com], Elizabeth Nolan Brown takes down the alt-right call for government intervention into free speech.
Was someone mean to you on Twitter? The White House wants to know about it. As of Wednesday, a new tool on the White House website allows visitors to report suspected "political bias" from social media companies. "Too many Americans have seen their accounts suspended, banned, or fraudulently reported for unclear 'violations' of user policies," the site says.
The tool only accepts complaints from U.S. citizens, although there is no requirement that complaint filers verify their identities. It asks users to list "what social media platform(s) took action against your account," what action was taken, links to tweets that triggered action, and screenshots of any messages from the platform.
Can the White House do something to #Freearistarchus?
The White House is portraying the initiative as an effort to defend free speech.
Its tempting to merely laugh at this sort of absurdity, to gawk at the blubbering fools who spent years ranting about easily-triggered liberal "snowflakes" only to literally make it a federal matter when their Facebook account gets suspended. And sure, the self-owning MAGAservative chorus of "No one liked my tweet, I must be shadowbanned!" is a special delicacy.
But these collective delusions are now being used by preening, authoritarian asshats—from Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) to members of the Trump administration itself—to drum up support for policies that take away Americans' speech rights.
Hmm, and actual libertarian? Not just a Republican who smokes pot?
Right now, too many Republicans want us to think it's a First Amendment violation for a private company to dictate the terms of service on a private platform it owns, but not for the federal government to dictate what individuals can and cannot say on those platforms or to punish private companies that don't conform to some Congress-created speech code.
I know it's clichéd and melodramatic to make 1984 references, but this is some really serious doublethink.
Burn! Double-plus ungood! #Freearistarchus!!!
