Hold on to your seats, folks. Allegations are swirling that a couple of our government heavyweights – the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – are back in business with the barons of the social media world, despite the Big Brother-esque specter of Supreme Court scrutiny for potential First Amendment violations.
The whispers began at a tech-lovers event courtesy of Senator Mark Warner, Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. There he dropped the bombshell that these agencies are allegedly back to their old tactics of quashing free speech ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Apparently, the shadowy web of Big Tech censorship and government collusion may still be alive and kicking.
The grapevine has it that the FBI has admitted it’s back to working hush-hush with Silicon Valley. The DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), however, isn’t singing—yet. As per the FBI rep, they are steadfastly battling foreign interference in our elections, which includes sharing disorder-causing info from abroad with election officials and, when suitable, private sector companies.
The FBI has also assured that it’s implemented procedures, with the Justice Department’s blessing, to share such information with social media companies in a way that doesn’t infringe on those companies’ autonomy to act on that information.
But, let’s look at the recent Supreme Court case, Murthy v. Missouri, which has exposed the dark underbelly of Big Tech and government censorship. Subsequent legal hiccups had supposedly stalled government activity, but that’s clearly not the full story according to Senator Warner’s nod and wink.
Warner himself called out the Biden administration to name and shame other nations for potential election tampering, citing the alleged Russian interference in 2016. Seemingly, he turned a blind eye to the possibility of social media meddling in U.S. elections under government pressure.
Let’s remember, it was not too long ago that Meta’s overlord Mark Zuckerberg revealed his company had stifled the Hunter Biden laptop scandal before the 2020 elections upon the FBI’s nudging. A Media Research Center survey showed that a good 17% of Biden voters would’ve thought twice if they’d known about the scandals involving Biden and his son, Hunter. And who hid that information? Big Tech and mainstream media.
So here we are folks—Murthy v. Missouri, a history-making case, is confronting alleged government connivance with tech giants to gag American’s right to free speech. It’s our duty to make sure Big Tech is held accountable. Demand that they operate under the same rules as the First Amendment while providing clear guidelines on hate speech and maintaining an equal playing field for all viewpoints. It’s time to fight for our freedom of speech.
