Conservatives Promote Free Speech For Social Media

Conservatives Promote Free Speech For Social Media

By: David Almasi

The National Center has joined more than two dozen organizations in a letter to Attorney General William Barr to promote online freedom of speech. The letter supports Barr’s recent comments that social media companies might now be liable for consideration as publishers of content and thus no longer exempt from federal protection and scrutiny.

“As conservatives, we do not argue for onerous regulations … or burdensome federal legislation,”

the letter from the members of the Free Speech Alliance (FSA) reads.

“However… the concerns you raised are quite justified.”

In the letter, FSA additionally offers Barr four principles for the government to deal with issues of bias and censorship coming out of Silicon Valley.

As part of a Justice Department-hosted workshop, Barr recently said that high-tech companies are no longer “underdog upstarts” – but are now “titans of U.S. industry.” He added that “valid questions have been raised as to whether Section 230′s broad immunity is still needed.”

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act currently protects social media platforms from certain legal liabilities regarding content posted by third parties. Such protection is being questioned as platforms begin acting like publishers when they censor certain content – usually conservative – in a seemingly political manner.

The FSA letter asserts that “[e]ach of the major social media platforms has an oversized share of influence on the public conversation.” It additionally points out that there are many high-profile examples of social media silencing conservative viewpoints. These include Twitter suspending LifeSite for its criticism of a radical transgender activist. It also includes the case of Facebook using a pro-abortion fact-checker to limit the outreach of a pro-life group in a manner that even Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg admitted showed extreme bias.

FSA outlines four principles for judging and dealing with biased social media providers:

• Transparency in showing how companies treat people with differing opinions.

• Clarification and agreement on what constitutes “hate speech” so that it can be employed uniformly.

• Adherence to policies on speech that mirror the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

• Truly diverse hiring practices that protect conservative voices in a liberal industry.

The letter remarks:

As conservatives, we shy away from advocating for government interference in the free market. However, as you and other leading public policy officials consider the path going forward, we ask you to consider the principles we have laid out as best practices for dealing with the problems raised by these social media platforms.

The last principle, calling for political diversity in hiring, has been championed by the National Center’s Free Enterprise Project (FEP). In shareholder proposals, FEP has asked corporations to amend their policies to ensure people are not discriminated against because of their political beliefs. While this reform has been adopted by major corporations such as Walmart and Pepsi, it has been viciously fought by Apple.

Other signers of the FSA letter included the Media Research Center (which organized the effort), Heartland Institute, Concerned Women for America, the Conservative Partnership Institute and the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

To read the entire letter from the Free Speech Alliance to Attorney General Barr, click here.

••••

This above article (Conservatives Promote Free Speech For Social Media) was originally created and published by CONSERVATIVEBLOG.ORG and has been republished here by contribution with our attribution to the articles author David Almasi as well as to the website CONSERVATIVEBLOG.ORG.

••••

Read more articles by: David Almasi

••••

••••

Stay tuned to …

••••

The Liberty Beacon Project is now expanding at a near exponential rate, and for this we are grateful and excited! But we must also be practical. For 7 years we have not asked for any donations, and have built this project with our own funds as we grew. We are now experiencing ever increasing growing pains due to the large number of websites and projects we represent. So we have just installed donation buttons on our websites and ask that you consider this when you visit them. Nothing is too small. We thank you for all your support and your considerations … (TLB)

••••

Comment Policy: As a privately owned web site, we reserve the right to remove comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats of violence, racism, or personal/abusive attacks on other users. This also applies to trolling, the use of more than one alias, or just intentional mischief. Enforcement of this policy is at the discretion of this websites administrators. Repeat offenders may be blocked or permanently banned without prior warning.

••••

Disclaimer: TLB websites contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, health, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.

••••

Disclaimer: The information and opinions shared are for informational purposes only including, but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material are not intended as medical advice or instruction. Nothing mentioned is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.