Josh Hawley Moves to End Immunity Privileges for Big Tech Monopolies Unless They Protect Free Speech
The freshman Senator from Missouri is taking action to protect digital freedom.
By Shane Trejo
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has emerged as the leading reformer against social media censorship, as he is going after their special immunity privileges under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
As it states right now, Section 230 states that “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
Howley’s bill, the Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act, would remove that exemption for Big Tech firms if they act like publishers instead of neutral platforms. Corporations would have to comply with external audits proving their algorithms and content moderation are not biased.
“With Section 230, tech companies get a sweetheart deal that no other industry enjoys: complete exemption from traditional publisher liability in exchange for providing a forum free of political censorship,” Hawley said in a statement. “Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, big tech has failed to hold up its end of the bargain.”
“There’s a growing list of evidence that shows big tech companies making editorial decisions to censor viewpoints they disagree with,” Hawley added. “Even worse, the entire process is shrouded in secrecy because these companies refuse to make their protocols public. This legislation simply states that if the tech giants want to keep their government-granted immunity, they must bring transparency and accountability to their editorial processes and prove that they don’t discriminate.”
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the left-leaning civil liberties organization, warns against changing the regulations.
“Though there are important exceptions for certain criminal and intellectual property-based claims, CDA 230 creates a broad protection that has allowed innovation and free speech online to flourish,” the EFF added on their website.
“This legal and policy framework has allowed for YouTube and Vimeo users to upload their own videos, Amazon and Yelp to offer countless user reviews, craigslist to host classified ads, and Facebook and Twitter to offer social networking to hundreds of millions of Internet users,” they added.
“Senator Hawley’s misguided legislation sets the table for stricter government control over free expression online,” Americans for Prosperity Policy Analyst Billy Easley said in a statement.
“Eroding the crucial protections that exist under Section 230 creates a scenario where government has the ability to police your speech and determine what you can or cannot say online,” Easley added.
ECommerce trade group NetChoice opposes the legislation because they admit that it would restrict the ability of tech giants to censor.
“This bill prevents social media websites from removing dangerous and hateful content, since that could make them liable for lawsuits over any user’s posting” said Carl Szabo, who works as General Counsel at NetChoice, in a statement. “Sen. Hawley’s bill creates an internet where content from the KKK would display alongside our family photos and cat videos.”
Hawley isn’t phased by the critics, and continues to put Big Tech in his crosshairs.
Full text of the legislation can be seen here.
YOUTUBE DELETES CHANNEL OF SPAIN’S POPULIST VOX PARTY
“Serious attack on freedom of expression”
JUNE 19, 2019
YouTube has deleted the populist Spanish Vox Party’s entire channel in yet another example of the Google-owned platform targeting right of center political content.
“Spain’s far-right Vox party @vox_es has demanded an explanation from @YouTube as to why their account has been closed or suspended ‘without any explanation’,” reported the Spain in English Twitter account.
The party itself then tweeted, “The decision to remove the channel is a serious attack on the freedom of expression and dissemination of a political party.”
It subsequently emerged that the deletion of the channel likely came as a result of simultaneous copyright claims made by leftists.
“YouTube has informed us that the disabling of the VOX channel is due to the complaint made by three people who believe that we have used content of theirs,” the party later tweeted, blaming “left-wing activists” for coordinating the takedown.
The party said that other political parties had used the same audiovisual content without being hit by copyright strikes.
“We call on these platforms, who claim to fight online abuse, to pursue groups of progressive trolls who report in an organized manner and for ideological reasons to all those accounts that do not conform to their unique thinking,” the party tweeted.
The Vox Party has 24 seats in the Spanish parliament having obtained over 10% of the vote in the country’s national election earlier this year. The party also has 3 seats in the European parliament.
As we previously reported, just days before the Spanish election in April, Facebook removed numerous large pro-Vox pages which had a combined reach of millions at the request of Avaaz, a left-wing NGO which is funded by George Soros.
Earlier this month, YouTube caved to a wave of contrived mob outrage (coincidentally led by another “Vox” – the left-wing media outlet) and announced it was imposing a major crackdown on “hate speech”.
Watch Live: House Holds Slavery Reparations Hearing
By Penny Starr
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is holding a hearing on Wednesday to discuss H.R. 40, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s bill entitled “Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act.”
The text of the bill states:
To address the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to study and consider a national apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery, its subsequent de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes.
The bill includes findings the commission would study:
(1) Approximately 4,000,000 Africans and their descendants were enslaved in the United States and colonies that became the United States from 1619 to 1865;
(2) The institution of slavery was constitutionally and statutorily sanctioned by the Government of the United States from 1789 through 1865;
(3) The slavery that flourished in the United States constituted an immoral and inhumane deprivation of Africans’ life, liberty, African citizenship rights, and cultural heritage, and denied them the fruits of their own labor;
(4) A preponderance of scholarly, legal, community evidentiary documentation and popular culture markers constitute the basis for inquiry into the on-going effects of the institution of slavery and its legacy of persistent systemic structures of discrimination on living African-Americans and society in the United States; and
(5) Following the abolition of slavery the United States Government, at the Federal, State, and local level, continued to perpetuate, condone and often profit from practices that continued to brutalize and disadvantage African-Americans, including sharecropping, convict leasing, Jim Crow, redlining, unequal education, and disproportionate treatment at the hands of the criminal justice system; and
(6) As a result of the historic and continued discrimination, African-Americans continue to suffer debilitating economic, educational, and health hardships including but not limited to having nearly 1,000,000 black people incarcerated; an unemployment rate more than twice the current white unemployment rate; and an average of less than 1⁄16 of the wealth of white families, a disparity which has worsened, not improved over time.
The list of witnesses includes presidential hopeful Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and actor Danny Glover.
Other witnesses set to testify at the hearing at 10 a.m. EST are: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Distinguished Writer in Residence, Arthur J. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University; Katrina Browne, documentarian, Traces of the Trade; Coleman Hughes Writer, Quilette;v Burgess Owens, speaker and writer; Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton, Episcopal Bishop of Maryland, Dr. Julianne Malveaux, economist and political commentator; and Eric Miller, professor of law, Loyola Law School, Loyola Marymount University.
Teen Vogue(on ANAL SEX) Gets Woke Again
TEEN VOGUE SAYS, “We’re here to lay it all out for you when it comes to anal sex”.
Published on Jun 19, 2019
‘CHILDREN CAN HANDLE THE KINK’ OF PRIDE PARADES, SAY SJW PARENTS
‘First of all, nobody likes nakedness more than children,’ says leftist writer
By Jamie White
Social justice parents in Canada have claimed that the kink and fetish themes of LGBTQ Pride parades are appropriate for children.
The question of whether pride parades are kid-friendly has grown in relevance during Pride month, where “Drag Queen Story Hour” events have exploded across the country and footage of a half-naked child “twerking” in front of grown men at a Pride parade has gone viral.
“I can’t imagine a safer place for families to bring children,” sex therapist Pega Ren told HuffPost Canada.
University of Toronto’s “sexual diversity” professor David Rayside acknowledge that Pride parades certainly have sexualizing elements to them, but insisted that none of the “thousands” of kids he’s seen at Pride parades complained about the sexually-charged atmosphere.
“Pride has always had a kind of outrageous edge to it,” Rayside said. “And should we alter that? It is not the Santa Claus parade, and it never was. It shouldn’t be. It can’t be.”
“I’ve seen thousands of kids at Pride, and I’ve never seen anyone fuss about what they see there,” he added.
Writer S. Bear Bergman said that kids love the “bubbles” and “rainbow streamers,” as well as “enjoyable performances,” whatever that means.
“There is absolutely no reason not to take our kids to Pride — it’s a fun day, there are a lot of bubbles, rainbow streamers and enjoyable performances,” Bergman said.
“It’s their right as queer spawn. And as a parent, I might want to take my kids to Pride, because they might be lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer or two-spirit.”
Bergman went on to defend the lewd elements of the Pride parade, saying he’s more worried about children being exposed to “compulsory heterosexuality” than a gay man shaking his bare behind in front of them.
“First of all, nobody likes nakedness more than children,” Bergman said.
“On the list of things that I don’t want my children ever to be exposed to are: Compulsory heterosexuality, demonstrations of sexism, demonstrations of racism, demonstrations of ablism, violence. These are all way higher on the list than some homosexual’s tuchus.”
However, some on social media expressed outrage over the overt sexualization and far-left brainwashing brought by Pride events.
IL Sen. Taunts Gun Owner: Forget the Fine, Maybe We’ll Just Take Your Firearms
By AWR HAWKINS
Illinois State Sen. Julie Morrison (D) taunted a concerned gun owner during a town hall by telling him she might forgo fining him and simply confiscate his firearms.
The exchange was caught on video by the Illinois State Rifle Association and was tied to proposed fines for keeping commonly owned semiautomatic firearms in one’s home.
The concerned gun owner pointed to SB107 and said the purpose of it was “to take away [his] semiautomatic firearms.”
Morrison then interjected that the purpose was not to take them, but to prevent any future sales.
The gun owner responded by pointing out that the ban on future sales included a fine for current owners who did not hand their guns over. He said, “You want me to turn them over to the state police unless I pay a fine for each firearm and register them, then I get to keep them.”
Morrison concurred, saying, “Okay.”
The gun owner then asked, “If I get to keep it–if I pay a fine and register it–then, how dangerous is it in the first place and why do you need to ban it all?”
People in attendance applauded the gun owner’s point and once applause died Morrison said, “Well, you just maybe changed my mind. Maybe we won’t have a fine at all, maybe it’ll just be a confiscation and we won’t have to worry about paying the fine.”
NRATV’s Cam Edwards commented on the exchange that drew Sen. Morrison into the light, where she openly talked confiscation. He described it as part of a larger “push-back” characterized by Second Amendment Sanctuary declarations in southern counties in Illinois.
Edwards said, “It’s been interesting to see this push-back in Illinois. Obviously, over the last few years we’ve seen a lot of counties outside of the Chicago-land area have been very vocal in pushing back. But I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been really impressed by the number of gun owners in northern Illinois…who have been speaking out.”
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