Censorship: Obama’s New Frontier – The 1st Amendment

Former President Barack Obama, in a speech this week, claimed that essentially the First Amendment does not apply in the case of social media entities such as Facebook and Twitter and is calling for more “value judgements” on content moderation and censorship on social media. It’s a good thing he can only have an opinion on the matter but has no real jurisdiction here.

He made these remarks coinciding with his study efforts for a speech at Stanford University, that obviously great bastion of all free thinkers. Perhaps the public could be enlightened as to his actual studies? Men can study how to harm themselves or others across a broad range of books, collective speeches and or many media forms. Do we need to censor those too? Perhaps free thinking that results from wisdom gained from many sources should be controlled as well? Perhaps the all-knowing Oz (Obama) has those answers too.

This attempt by the former president is sickening. He uses his own influence at Netflix to fill TV screens of geography of the world with his own propaganda regarding “global warming”. Whose reality is valid? America should be considered smart enough to make its own choices. Just because it’s said - does not make it so.

In this speech, he whined that the current content models for social media platforms allowed all content to flow equally. Wow, what a novel concept!

In our study, perhaps America should have both sides of an issue before forming an opinion. What he seems to intimate is that we are just too lazy, poorly educated and downright incapable of reasoning as himself or his elitist ilk.

He is quoted as saying:

“While content moderation can limit the distribution of clearly dangerous content, it doesn’t go far enough,” adding “[O]ver time we lose our capacity to distinguish between fact, opinion, and wholesale fiction. Or maybe we just stop caring,” and “Our brains aren’t accustomed to taking in this much information this fast, and a lot of us are experiencing overload” adding “Regulation has to be part of the answer,” (to start) “slowing the spread of harmful content” (online).

Obama apparently believes that a flood of information makes it difficult to discern the truth. Again, America is just to mentally slow to consider a matter and decide what is personally best for the individual, family, group and so on. His elitist mentality really shows how much he and those of his left winged persuasion desperately want to limit what we as citizens have access to, so that we develop our thinking along their Marxist lines of reasoning.

The idea that he describes himself as  “pretty close to a First Amendment absolutist”, denying free speech should exist for the media, is beyond ridiculous. Obama noted that even though disinformation is difficult to identify, and that content moderation by technology companies already exists, more regulation is needed.

In true alarmist style, he intimates that government is not doing enough to save democracy, warning that a series of social media reforms and regulations should exist. Of course, they should be the ones that he personally favors (wink-wink). It’s Obama and his socialist cronies to the rescue.

Again, he is on the who do you believe bandwagon claiming that “People are dying because of misinformation,” referring to COVID 19 and the fact that a virus killed people because they made a choice possibly to not be vaccinated – though research on the vaccines is just now coming out of hiding because reputable physicians are fighting to gain the truth. His media regulation would promote the cover up of many parties seeking the truth of a matter.

Why is he allowed to make those assumptions about people’s lives, their very real illnesses, deaths and why must we listen to his power posturing rhetoric? The simple answer is we don’t have to - however it pays to know where his power is being wielded to stand against this altruistic form of social control.

Perhaps what needs to happen instead, is that these carriers (Facebook and Twitter) need to act as common carriers (without censorship) and lose their Section 230 protection. They already are editing/censoring content that America knows nothing of. The US Government is already providing them Good Samaritan protection under this rule:

“Section 230(c)(2) further provides “Good Samaritan” protection from civil liability for operators of interactive computer services in the good faith removal or moderation of third-party material they deem "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected." 

- Wikipedia

Information should be allowed to be heard, reviewed and considered from ALL SIDES and not regulated by a few who want the control of people’s liberty of thought. Perhaps America should review the following thought:

"Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech; which is the right of every man as far as by it he does not hurt or control the right of another; and this is the only check it ought to suffer and the only bounds it ought to know.... Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech, a thing terrible to traitors."

   - Benjamin Franklin
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