North Korea, China, Venezuela, Brazil, Canada, Australia, the European Union and the United Kingdom have each shown what they are willing to do to their citizens, and in some cases social media users abroad, if they dare disagree with their respective governments’ official narrative. If elected, will Vice President Kamala Harris’s America be so different?
Democratic nominee for president Harris has publicly advocated for taking away the free speech rights of her political rival Donald Trump on at least five separate occasions. In 2019, then-Senator and presidential candidate Harris (D-CA) mounted a campaign against her would-be opponent Trump, asking Twitter to suspend his account. MRC Free Speech America researchers have found five times where Harris pushed for election-interfering censorship of Trump.
Her censorship campaign began with Trump’s tweets reacting to allegations brought against him during the largely partisan impeachment proceedings in 2019. Trump was accused of abusing his power as president by urging the Ukrainian government to investigate the Biden family and their ties to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma allegedly in exchange for access to Trump.
Trump’s tweets questioned how a whistleblower acquired alleged information and called out the lead prosecutor in the investigation, Rep. Adam Shiff (D-CA). Harris saw the free speech of her political rival as grounds for censorship.
On September 30, 2019 Kamala Harris outright said that Twitter should censor Trump on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360. “I, frankly, think that based on [Trump’s tweets] and all we’ve seen him do before, including attacking members of Congress, that he, frankly, hisTwitter account should be suspended,” she said. “I think there is plenty of, of now evidence to suggest that he is irresponsible with his words in a way that could result in harm to other people, and so the privilege of using those words in that way should probably be taken from him.” [Emphasis added.]
She added that if Trump did not show “self-restraint, then perhaps there should be other mechanisms in place to make sure that his harm, his words do not, in fact, harm anyone.”
Later that same night, Harris doubled down in a tweet that read: “Look let's be honest, @realDonaldTrump 's Twitter account should be suspended.” [Emphasis added.]
The very next day, Harris sent a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey explicitly asking him to consider censoring the sitting president of the United States. She–like many others in government at that time, as The Twitter Files have revealed–reached out allegedly to highlight content that seemed to violate Twitter’s Terms of Service.
Showing her disdain for America’s first principles, Harris cited past examples of the platform censoring users she disagreed with, arguing that Trump’s account should also be on the chopping block. “In the past, Twitter has banned or suspended people who have violated its user agreement,” she said. She went on in the letter:
“InfoWars host Alex Jones was permanently banned from the platform in 2018 for spreading disinformation and inciting violence. Disgraced hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli and actor James Woods were both suspended from Twitter for using the platform to harass and spread hateful messages. I believe the President’s recent tweets rise to the level that Twitter should consider suspending his account. Others have had their accounts suspended for less offensive behavior. And when this kind of abuse is being spewed from the
most powerful office in the United States, the stakes are too high to do nothing,” [emphasis added].
On October 15, Twitter responded to some of Harris’s concerns in a blog post, pointing to its policy on why it does not censor world leaders.
“[I]f a Tweet from a world leader does violate the Twitter Rules but there is a clear public interest value to keeping the Tweet on the service, we may place it behind a notice that provides context about the violation and allows people to click through should they wish to see the content,” the platform wrote.
That same day, Harris did not let up on her requests for Twitter to censor, not once but twice. During the CNN-New York Times Democrat presidential primary debate, Harris attempted to get Senator and then-presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to join her in asking Twitter to suspend Trump’s account.
“I was surprised to hear that you did not agree with me on this subject of what should be the rules of corporate responsibility for these Big Tech companies when I called on Twitter to suspend Donald Trump’s account,” she said. Harris later added, “he and his account should be taken down.” [Emphasis added.]
She later took a different tactic when she went after Big Tech companies for not censoring him in a tweet falsely accusing Trump of crimes. “Trump's tweets incite violence, threaten witnesses, and obstruct justice,” she wrote. “We can't crack down on Facebook but turn a blind eye to Twitter. Big tech companies must be held accountable for how they allow him to abuse their platforms. #DemDebate.” [Emphasis added.]
According to The Twitter Files parts four and five, Dorsey would later cave to Harris’s line of reasoning when his own staffers pressured him to let them censor Trump in 2021.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment and provide an equal platform for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using MRC Free Speech America’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
