Throughout Joe Biden’s term, it was common for federal officials to work with social media companies, asking tech giants such as Facebook and Twitter (as it was known at the time) to help limit the spread of mis- and disinformation, especially from foreign sources. The Democratic administration never forced these companies to take down content, but it routinely communicated concerns to executives.
This, in some conservative circles, was seen as an outrageous abuse.
I’ve never fully understood the nuances of the right’s fury about this, but a great many Republicans and their allies spent years complaining that the Biden administration alerting media companies to problematic content was a brazen First Amendment violation and an unforgivable assault on free speech. People must be allowed to communicate however they wish via social media, the argument went, without so much as a hint of interference from federal officials.
At least, that was the right’s approach to the issue — right up until quite recently. The New Republic reported:
In an interesting turn of events, MAGA is now in favor of the government pressuring Big Tech platforms to censor users’ speech. On Tuesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi revealed that the Department of Justice got Facebook to remove a group page where users shared information about Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the Chicago area.
Indeed, Bondi bragged about the developments in a message posted to social media, declaring that Facebook removed content in response to “outreach” from the Trump Justice Department.
The nation’s chief law enforcement official went on to write that her department intends to “continue engaging” tech companies to “eliminate platforms” that the Republican administration deems dangerous.
In other words, when the Biden administration supported voluntary social media content moderation, it was an outrage worthy of many hours of congressional investigation and countless complaints from assorted conservative voices. When Team Trump does the same thing, it’s benign “outreach.” As for Facebook, it was just last year when Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, told the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee how much he regretted cooperating with the Biden administration, adding that federal interference was a “wrong” move that he’d fight in the future. “I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction — and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again,” Zuckerberg wrote at the time. So much for that idea.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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