It’s not me. It’s you, a phrase rarely uttered in the dating world, and yet something Google seems to often repeat—but only when it has to.
Such was the tech giant’s counsel-written statement in response to a subpoena from Chairman Jim Jordan’s (R-OH) House Judiciary Committee regarding censorship. From the letter:
“It is unacceptable and wrong when any government, including the Biden Administration, attempts to dictate how the Company moderates content, and the Company has consistently fought against those efforts on First Amendment grounds,” [emphasis added].
MRC Vice President Dan Schneider nearly went line for line in an op-ed on the Alphabet counsel letter, ripping it to shreds for being little more than a “sly censorship ‘confession.’” In the New York Post piece, Schneider made sure readers were eyes-wide-open regarding what the letter actually conveyed:
“Google admitted little, promised less — and pledged to change nothing.
“It offered not confession but evasion.”
Google “revealed nothing new;” it “admitted no wrongdoing;” the platform “volunteered nothing;” it “clarified nothing;” Google “said nothing;” and perhaps worst of all, it “changed nothing.”
Indeed, Google’s censorship gig has been ongoing for quite some time now, as has been documented over and over and over and over and over again by MRC Free Speech America across its multiple platforms from Google Search to video (YouTube) to news aggregator (Google News) to artificial intelligence chatbot (Gemini).
But Schneider said enough is enough. “Free speech advocates can no longer take a wait-and-see approach,” he wrote, before offering a clear solution to cure the Big Tech online censorship problem:
“Congress should make clear that Big Tech platforms are ‘common carriers,’ prohibited under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act from censoring users.”
“The Federal Communications Commission can take action through its rule-making processes, and the Federal Trade Commission can penalize Google for deceptive advertising practices.”
Then there’s the West’s digital ID creep.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer gave nearly the same answer as Google’s counsel in response to a question about why England needed digital ID: It’s not me. It’s you
In an interview with the BBC, Starmer pointed the finger at U.K. citizens—not the Labour Party’s failed immigration policies—and demanded U.K. citizens obtain digital ID in order to protect them from illegal immigration.
“[T]here’s no point, people saying to me, ‘Why do we need it?’ when we all acknowledge there is a problem,” claimed Starmer. “People are working illegally in our economy. It is amongst the reasons that people want to come to the United Kingdom. We have to deal with that. I made a pledge that we would do whatever was necessary, use whatever tools were available to deal with illegal migration, and I intend to do so.”
Reform Party Member of Parliament Nigel Farage was having none of it. He rightly condemned it as a “means of controlling the population,” among other things.
“All that digital ID will be is a means of controlling the population, of telling us what we can and can’t do, of fining the innocent,” stated Farage. “And didn’t we see it all when we had the pandemic, when you had to have vaccine ID to travel, to do various things? Did that stop the COVID pandemic’s … spreading? Did it help? All it did was put cost and inconvenience on everybody else. I also worry about massive databanks being held by the government, being hacked by foreign governments, by private companies, by criminals. I do not see a single benefit to the government having digital ID other than them controlling what we do, what we spend, and where we go.”
Several GOP politicians took note. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas (R) responded in an X post Sept. 26: “The idea is not fully complete. People might lose their ID. If I might suggest, the govt could mandate that the 18-digit number must be tattooed on their right hand & on their forehead. What could possibly go wrong?”
So, too, did Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R), calling it, “1984-ish.” DeSantis, for his part, has already taken concrete steps to combat the looming threat of digital ID in his state by passing a law forbidding their use. He addressed the issue across the pond, writing in an X post on Oct. 1, “Stopping digital ID in the UK will be a big win for freedom. It’s obvious that they want to use digital ID for access to banking, medical, and even voting. They will try to layer CDBC[sic] on top of it.”
But if you think it can’t happen here in America. Think again.
As I wrote back in March 2023, the foundation for a U.S. CBDC has already been laid.
First came President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14067 of March 9, 2022, “Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets,” which outlined the Biden administration’s priorities. “My Administration places the highest urgency on research and development efforts into the potential design and deployment options of a United States CBDC,” read the executive order.
Then, in June 2022, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell noted that CBDCs were already being examined and went on to praise how “a U.S. CBDC could also potentially help maintain the dollar’s international standing.”
Next, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen piled on, providing a report on “The Future of Money and Payments,” which included the following recommendations: (1) “Advance work on a possible U.S. CBDC, in case one is determined to be in the national interest;” (2) “Encourage use of instant payment systems to support a more competitive, efficient, and inclusive U.S. payment landscape;” (3) “Establish a federal framework for payments regulation to protect users and the financial system, while supporting responsible innovations in payments” and (4) “Prioritize efforts to improve cross-border payments, both to enhance payment system efficiency and protect national security.”
The minority leader on the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), has also gone so far as to endorse the creation of an American CBDC. She even held a Senate hearing titled “Building a Stronger Financial System: Opportunities of a Central Bank Digital Currency.” Her counterpart in the House, House Financial Services Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-CA), reportedly spearheaded the inclusion of pro-CBDC provisions in the massive stimulus bill requested by then-President Joe Biden (though the final statute did not contain her language). Rallying support in the House to block a proposed social credit system ban, Waters even called CBDC development “the next space race.”
And so, for all the reasons that Cruz, DeSantis and Farage have said, digital ID and its partner CBDCs are horrible—not to mention how they can and would be used to chill and suppress free speech. Free speech is the backbone of democratic societies, and we all saw how government colluded with the private sector to target and silence dissent during the pandemic. It looks like digital tyranny is rearing its head again in the U.K., and it could happen here in America, too, if we’re not careful. Freedom-loving Americans must stand up and say, “No,” now ... before it’s too late.
