The former leader of the defunct Disinformation Governance Board argued Saturday that the government doesn’t censor users it just makes it easier for social media companies to censor them.
MSNBC host Ali Velshi brought Nina Jankowicz his show Velshi to critique the Missouri v. Biden case. The case came out with a momentous pro free speech ruling ordering that the Biden administration no longer encourage Big Tech companies to censor constitutionally protected speech. Jankowicz, however, was not too thrilled. She even argued that flagging posts somehow helps generate more speech.
Velshi claimed that the ruling implies that “the government was trying to influence social media companies in violation of the First Amendment which sort of prevents the government from stifling speech. That's not really the story.”
Jankowicz responded by saying “[n]o, not at all” then proceeded to undercut herself explaining how the government influences social media companies to censor free speech. “[M]ost of the counter-disinformation work that is being done… has nothing to do with censorship,” she alleged. “It's about countering with more speech. It's about more speech, getting the facts out there. It's not about removing speech.”
In case that was clear as mud, Jankowicz later explained that the government doesn’t censor it merely flags content that violates Big Tech companies' policies. “In more than 70% of the instances,” the platforms do nothing,” she added defending her position.
She further explained. “It's a flag saying [to Big Tech companies] hey, you may not have seen this… but here's some election disinformation. Here's something that could threaten public health that already goes against your policies. We thought you might want to know about it.”
Jankowicz failed to explain, however, how flagging content is different from trying to influence social media companies to remove speech. What does she expect the companies to do about the so-called disinformation the government is pointing out to them if not take it down?
The Twitter Files fly in the face of Jankowicz’s claims. They repeatedly showed that while government agencies had no power to censor users directly, they along with very politically connected NGO’s, flagged content for Twitter to censor. In many cases, Twitter was left with the choice of obeying the implied demands of censorship or receiving bad press for not censoring free speech enough.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representative and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
