On Wednesday’s Morning Joe, ADL Vice President Yael Eisenstat joined MSNBC hosts Willie Geist and Jonathan Lemire to demand social media companies tighten the noose of political censorship online, cry about Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, and even call for the government to become involved in online censorship.
Eisenstat, a far left censorship proponent, appeared on the segment to push forward the thesis that so-called “hate speech” has been increasing online, and that social media companies needed to censor it, as well as that the government needed to pass legislation forcing them crack down on it if they won’t do so on their own.
She raged:
“And to be very clear, we’re talking about asking companies to just enforce their own rules. They have rules against hate speech, and it's just more and more becoming clear that they do not prioritize protecting users and it’s whether it's because it's not profitable to do so, whether it's because they’d rather sweep it under the rug, or whether it's because there's no actual pressure from government or others to do anything about this, all of those things are contributing to what's happening.”
So, who is Yael Eisenstat? Apart from being the Vice President of the ADL, a partisan organization dedicated to demonizing right-wingers and labeling them “anti-semites” based solely on their opposition to woke ideology, she was a former Facebook employee, CIA analyst, and National Security Adviser to then Vice President Joe Biden.
According to Influence Watch, Eisenstat “argued that speech she considers to be misinformation or hateful that does not violate any laws should still be subjected to censorship.” Here Eisenstat showed her true malevolent nature, that she wished to destroy any political speech she disagreed with by classifying it as “hate speech”.
Geist, fully supportive of her censorship push, addressed viewers directly, arguing for her credibility:
“We should tell our viewers, you are abundantly qualified to analyze this from that point of view, from the social media companies, because you worked at Facebook for a long time, and in fact, left because of some of the red flags you threw up about what was happening at Facebook.”
Based on her views, it’s reasonable to conclude that the reason she quit Facebook was because she wanted more censorship on Facebook than the company was willing to allow.
Lemire then turned the conversation to Twitter, lamenting that “the voices are different on Twitter than they were before Elon Musk took over” and that “you’re greeted with such venom sometimes.” Eisenstat then answered that the problem was “there’s no true incentive for this company to do that because there's no actual transparency requirements at all from the federal government.”
Eisenstat then claimed “it’s not a question of saying government should say what is or is not online” but that the government should still indirectly push companies to censor through “transparent reporting” of their hate speech policies.
This MSNBC propaganda segment highlighted the ever-expanding attempts by the left to use “hate speech” to silence dissent and centralize power under themselves both through governmental legislation and private corporations. Their real enemy was never hate; it was the First Amendment.
MSNBC’s assault on free speech was sponsored by GoDaddy and Trivago. Their contact information is linked.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
06/28/23
7:31 AM ET
(…)
YAEL EISENSTAT: Sure, so you really hit the key numbers already. So just to emphasize, this is a dramatic increase over previous years, highest number we’ve seen since we started this survey for adults, for teens have dramatically increased how much hate and abuse they're seeing online. And we really also looked at transgender respondents this year just due to how much anti-transgender legislation and rhetoric is existing as well in the world.
And so, the root of this, it's two things, listen, it's society, it's what's happening. It's hate in the world, but it's also social media platforms are not taking the necessary steps to protect the people who use their services every day. And that's just been made abundantly clear, not only in the numbers that we're seeing, but even if you look what's happening in these companies, laying off their trust and safety people, record layoffs over the last year matched with record rises in online hate and harassment.
WILLIE GEIST: We should tell our viewers, you are abundantly qualified to analyze this from that point of view, from the social media companies, because you worked at Facebook for a long time, and in fact, left because of some of the red flags you threw up about what was happening at Facebook.
Why is it so difficult internally at these companies, whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, Meta, Twitter, all of them to monitor and squash the most aggressive online hate, the kind you're describing in this survey?
EISENSTAT: So I would argue it is not so difficult.
GEIST: Hmmm.
EISENSTAT: It's a question of priorities. So you're right, when I worked at Facebook, I was there actually working on elections integrity, which also involved a lot of political inflammatory rhetoric, including hate speech, and it was a question of what the company decided to prioritize.
And to be very clear, we're talking about asking companies to just enforce their own rules. They have rules against hate speech, and it's just more and more becoming clear that they do not prioritize protecting users and it’s whether it's because it's not profitable to do so, whether it's because they’d rather sweep it under the rug, or whether it's because there's no actual pressure from government or others to do anything about this, all of those things are contributing to what's happening.
JONATHAN LEMIRE: So, let's talk about Twitter in particular for a moment, where the new regime there, and it's certainly just anecdotally, you could just tell, the voices are different on Twitter than they were before Elon Musk took over. The numbers back it up. Is there any recommendations in particular for that site, which this weekend was a reminder of how people, when there's news out there, people turn to it, the Russia incident, and yet we're seeing -- you're greeted with such venom sometimes. What can be done there?
EISENSTAT: So with Twitter, it's particularly complicated because not only has ownership changed and the rules have changed, and the vast majority of employees who used to work at Twitter, specifically in trust and safety, whose role it was to protect users and enforce these kinds of anti-hate policies, most of them have been fired.
And so, yes, numbers rose on Twitter as well, and what we would really like to see is to be explicit about what their anti-hate policies are and how they are going to enforce it. But let’s be very clear, there's no true incentive for this company to do that because there's no actual transparency requirements at all from the federal government.
So, I bring that up because it's not a question of saying government should say what is or is not online. But at the very least, we should demand that there's transparent reporting from these companies, showing us, did you enforce your policies that you have told users are what you are going to protect us against when we use your platforms.
GEIST: And Claire McCaskill, for whatever reason, there hasn't been that will in congress to really push hard on this. In fairness, there are senators on both sides actually trying to get legislation through to do some of the things Yael is talking about but just hasn't made it very far.
(…)
