(11-10-2024, 09:15 PM)Lucky2Last Wrote:

• Hunter Biden Laptop Story - The most obvious. Social media platforms blocked the New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, citing disinformation concerns. Later, the story was verified as authentic. The suppression seemed driven by FBI warnings about Russian disinformation, which raised concerns that the government censored legitimate news for political reasons.
  
  
• Disinformation Governance Board - Remember this gem? DHS created a Disinformation Governance Board to monitor online misinformation. The board was quickly shelved after backlash, with critics fearing it could be used to suppress political speech. The attempt raised concerns about government control over public discourse.
  
  
• CISA's Rumor Control - Here's one most of us didn't know about. CISA launched Rumor Control to debunk election-related misinformation, but it also flagged legitimate concerns, like the lab-leak theory. While some disinformation was harmful, this initiative may have stifled valid public discussion and emerging facts, especially as the lab-leak theory later gained traction.
  
  
• COVID-19 Misinformation - I could write a book on this one, but I'll just hit the basics. The government pressured social media platforms to remove COVID-19 content that contradicted official guidance. While I will concede some content was indeed false, discussions about vaccine safety and the virus's origins were censored. Additionally, the government attempted to stifle important debates that later turned out to be valid.
  
  
• FBI Social Media Monitoring - The FBI worked with tech companies to flag posts about election fraud, but many of these claims, though disproven, were stifled without public discussion. That's the important part. The censorship prevented a broader debate about potential flaws in the election process, even if the claims were ultimately unsubstantiated.
  
  
• Russian Disinformation Claims - Russia. Russia. Russia. The government pressured social media platforms to remove content tied to Russian interference. While Russian efforts were confirmed, some flagged accounts were legitimate political discourse. Over-censorship in this case may have suppressed valid political speech. It also turns out that most of this nonsense originated from the Clinton camp. Shocker.
  
  
• National Response Framework for Disinformation - More government control of speech. The government’s National Response Framework coordinated efforts to remove disinformation online. While it aimed to limit harmful content, it also raised fears about silencing dissenting views or stifling important debates by labeling them as false or harmful.
  
  
• Social Media and Extremism- The FBI and DHS monitored and removed extremist content from social media. While intended to combat violent extremism, some non-violent political speech was labeled as “extreme,” leading to concerns that legitimate political dialogue was being suppressed. Additionally, the Twitter Files revealed internal communications showing how Twitter worked with government agencies, including the FBI and DHS, to censor content related to the 2020 election, Hunter Biden’s laptop, and COVID-19. These documents showed how government pressure, both direct and indirect, influenced Twitter’s content moderation, raising concerns about free speech and the level of government involvement in shaping online narratives.
  

Critics feared, may have stifled, may have suppressed, raising concerns…yes perhaps.

Was it all necessary? No. Was it only positive? No. Was it more positive than negative? Certainly, especially when it came to Covid 19.

You write “While I will concede some content was indeed false, discussions about vaccine safety and the virus’s origins were censored. Well thank God discussions on vaccine safety were censored! Keeping the anti-vaxer nut jobs at bay saved untold thousands of lives!

There are well established limits on free speech. For example, you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater. The anti-vaxers who convinced people not to get vaccinated killed far, far more people than yelling fire in a crowded theatre ever could.

In Canada:

Unvaccinated 11 to 17 times more likely to die

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/seve...-canadians

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