President-elect Donald Trump has a golden opportunity to crush the censorship regime that amassed a staggering amount of power during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Never before in America’s history has there been a Censorship Industrial Complex as vast and powerful as the one currently choking our First Amendment rights. Whether it’s the tech platforms themselves, such as Google and Facebook, targeting free speech and boosting left-wing agendas with shadowy algorithms, the Biden administration’s collusion with these platforms to shut down so-called “misinformation” about COVID-19 or the State Department’s Global Engagement Center collaborating with fact-checkers to crush conservative news outlets, the censorship overlords have gotten way out of control. Americans, both liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, are suffering for it. (Stream the Daily Caller’s documentary ‘Rigged’ HERE)
Trump has a plan, however, which he laid out back in 2022. In the coming months, Republicans should hit the ground running and ensure that the president-elect’s proposals are implemented as soon as possible. With control of the House, the Senate and the Executive branch, the GOP has no excuse to drag its feet on an issue that is truly critical to the country’s future. It’s high time pro-censorship bureaucrats, Silicon Valley executives, and non-profit activists destroying our First Amendment are brought to heel.
This earns @realDonaldTrump a space on Mount Rushmore. pic.twitter.com/9IQb7lPQyb
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) November 9, 2024
Day One Executive Order
The first step is for Trump to immediately go to war with the deep state by signing an executive order that reins in rogue bureaucrats and fires those who’ve already engaged in censorship, whether at DHS, the FBI or the DOJ:
Within hours of my inauguration, I will sign an executive order banning any federal department or agency from colluding with any organization, business or person, to censor, limit, categorize, or impede the lawful speech of American citizens. I will then ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as ‘mis-‘ or ‘dis-information’. And I will begin the process of identifying and firing every federal bureaucrat who has engaged in domestic censorship —directly or indirectly — whether they are the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI, the DOJ, no matter who they are.
Mobilize The DOJ
Trump said he would then mobilize the DOJ to enforce laws that were likely broken under President Joe Biden’s administration:
I will order the Department of Justice to investigate all parties involved in the new online censorship regime, which is absolutely destructive and terrible, and to aggressively prosecute any and all crimes identified. These include possible violations of federal civil rights law, campaign finance laws, federal election law, securities law and anti-trust laws, the Hatch Act and a host of other potential criminal, civil, regulatory and constitutional offenses. To assist in these efforts, I am urging House Republicans to immediately send preservation letters — and we have to do this right now — to the Biden administration, the Biden campaign and every Silicon Valley tech giant, ordering them not to destroy evidence of censorship.
Section 230 Revision
Section 230 is a hotly debated issue, with some conservatives advocating for its complete repeal while others support an incremental process of revision. Either way, something needs to change soon. For too long, Big Tech companies have gotten a free ride from the government even as they censored lawful speech from American citizens. Keeping the status quo will only embolden these companies, and they will not be incentivized to change.
Upon my inauguration as president, I will ask Congress to send a bill to my desk revising Section 230 to get big online platforms out of censorship business. From now on, digital platforms should only qualify for immunity protection under Section 230 if they meet high standards of neutrality, transparency, fairness and non-discrimination. We should require these platforms to INCREASE their efforts to take down UNLAWFUL content, such as child exploitation and promoting terrorism, while dramatically curtailing their power to arbitrarily restrict lawful speech.
End To Gov’t Funding
The federal government should not spend a single taxpayer dime on non-profits, universities or academic programs that covertly engage in censorship, Trump says. The nonstop spigot of federal research dollars must shut down if left-wing college departments fund or promote censorship through the guise of “misinformation” or “disinformation.”
Trump also has a plan to crack down on the “revolving door” between government agencies and the private sector, which is a huge problem in Washington, D.C. Federal officials often shape regulations to the benefit of Wall Street, defense contractors, pharmaceutical companies and other special interest groups, so that they receive a sinecure from those institutions once they leave government. There is even more at stake when that revolving door is funneling Deep State spooks into powerful social media and tech companies, and Trump sees it:
We should also enact new laws laying out clear criminal penalties for federal bureaucrats who partner with private entities to do an end-run around the Constitution and deprive Americans of their First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. In other words, deprive them of their vote. And once you lose those elections and once you lose your borders like we have, you no longer have a country. Furthermore, to confront the problems of major platforms being infiltrated by legions of former Deep Staters and intelligence officials, there should be a 7-year cooling-off period before any employee of the FBI, CIA, NSA, DNI, DHS or DOD is allowed to take a job at a company possessing vast quantities of U.S. user data.
Digital Bill Of Rights
It’s time Americans recognize that speech in the digital public square is as real as speech in the physical one. Airing your grievances in a public Facebook group is no different than assembling on a street corner. A digital bill of rights is bold, but it’s necessary for the 21st Century:
The time has finally come for Congress to pass a digital Bill of Rights. This should include a right to digital due process — in other words, government officials should need a COURT ORDER to take down online content, not send information requests such as the FBI was sending to Twitter.
If Republicans and executive appointees wield the Trump mandate wisely and efficiently, they can do some serious damage to the Censorship Industrial Complex, if not destroy it for good. America is facing many problems, domestically and abroad, but protecting free speech here at home should be priority number one. Without free speech, you can’t even begin to have an honest and fair debate about how to fix the immigration system or how to deal with China. Trump has a plan to restore it. Now, his administration and GOP lawmakers need to execute.
