Remember, back before Elon’s stunning release of the Twitter files and exposure of collusion between the FBI and Twitter and Democrat campaigns and Twitter, when Democrats were claiming that there wasn’t any collusion and that it was just a “private company” free to do as it wants? Remember when they said that whatever Twitter was doing was ok because, though the government can’t censor, private companies can?
Many conservatives do remember that and are now using the past statements of Democrats to humiliate them. Diamond and Silk did so to Ted Lieu, posting a video of Lieu’s past statement on the matter and commenting “.@tedlieu do you still stand by your statements in this video? If so, what happens if there’s proof the Government intervened & colluded with Twitter (Social Media) to filter, restrict content & violate the 1st amendment, especially since you said, it’s flat out unconstitutional?”
Watch the video here:
.@tedlieu do you still stand by your statements in this video? If so, what happens if there's proof the Government intervened & colluded with Twitter (Social Media) to filter, restrict content & violate the 1st amendment, especially since you said, it's flat out unconstitutional? pic.twitter.com/FFFVZzIvT1
— Diamond and Silk® (@DiamondandSilk) December 12, 2022
As you can hear in the video, Lieu, speaking on the matter of why Twitter’s private censorship was ok but government involvement would make it unconstitutional, said:
The top three elected officials number one, Donald Trump. Number two Vice President Pence, number three Speaker Ryan, the notion that social media somehow censoring conservative folks is ridiculous. And three witnesses, they have testified that that’s not happening. And we don’t do laws by anecdote, at least I hope I don’t. And we shouldn’t. But there’s a more fundamental problem. The First Amendment applies to the government. Can we just get that clear? It does not apply to restrict content of private companies. So let’s just go through something very simple
You know…we don’t tell Fox News what to filter. Right? Correct. And we can’t tell Facebook, what content to filter the government can, right? Correct. They’ll just be flat-out unconstitutional, right? Yes, sir. We can’t force Facebook to carry Diamond and Silk. And they choose not to, isn’t that right? Correct.
You know, I’ve seen places that regulate content on the internet, and in the media, North Korea, Russia, Iran. We don’t want to be like that. Why are we having a hearing about regulating content? It’s unconstitutional to begin with.
But let’s go a little further into this. Everyone has a right to monetize. So Facebook monetize is you know how they do you know how I can get stuff out on Facebook and make sure lots of people see it. I pay for it. You pay for ads, and then they send it out. They don’t care.
The notion that somehow Facebook has to carry certain people and promote them is ridiculous. They do not have to do that. Twitter doesn’t have these are private companies. They are not like UPS or FedEx. They are like publishers, they will like the media. And the fact that we’re here debating should we regulate content. And that is completely ridiculous. I don’t know why the Republicans want to even think about doing this. What makes America great is we get to say stuff and not have the government intervene. And yes, do I think it’s bad that there’s no regulation on the internet? Probably. But you know, as far worse is that have the government regulated? Who’s going to decide? I don’t? How do we move right? A bill about how we force Facebook to carry certain people are not or Twitter to carry certain people are not able to promote people more or less. I don’t know how you can write a bill like that. And this entire hearing, makes no constitutional sense to me. So I want to get some more facts into the record here. So Mrs. Oka, the Communications Decency Act. It’s true, isn’t it? That that is largely one of the things that caused the Internet to expand and grow. It is the law that made the internet possible. And one of the prime features of that act is we’re not going to go ahead and regulate and Sue companies based on content. Isn’t that right? That was a republican idea in 1996. Exactly. And when we tried this regulation of the media through this stupid Fairness Doctrine, it was Reagan that said, as you said, it should go into the trash cheaper history, right? Yes, sir.
I always thought that the Republicans stood for limited government, not having the government intervene into the aspects of private companies. I don’t know why we’re here at a Republican-controlled Judiciary Committee talking about intervening and do what Google or Facebook or Twitter or any tech company should do or should not do. We should let the marketplace ideas go out there. But guess what if Facebook’s not into that, and they want to write algorithms that promote certain things, let’s say you want to write algorithms that promotes cats. Can the government stop them from doing that?
Thankfully, not. And let’s say Facebook figures out, you know, promoting cats gets a lot more people sign on to Facebook, then promoting Diamond and Silk. Can the government intervene and stop Facebook from doing that? No. Okay. And let’s say Twitter figures out, you know, want to promote nice, cuddly images of furry animals, rather than dismembered body parts. Can the government say you can’t do that? No. Okay. And let’s say Google has decided, you know, we’re just not going to carry people that talk about pizza gate anymore. And the government say you can’t do that. No? Okay. I yield back.
Well those words are gonna come back to haunt him…
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