Larry Kudlow: 'This is a free country and people should have free speech'
President Trump claimed in his op-ed that "Big Tech has been illegally deputized as the censorship arm of the U.S. government."
Kudlow: There have been so many 'flip flops' and false statements from government
'Kudlow' host reacts to White House admitting to using Facebook to censor 'misinformation'
So, let’s stay with this issue, and let me put this thought on the table...
Former President Donald Trump was and is right. Period. Full stop. I know he was my boss, but I don't always agree with everything. I don't always agree with him. That was the case when I served and is still the case today.
In fact, he loved a good debate on issues but, on this matter, his arguments as put forward in his WSJ op-ed piece of July 8 was completely on target. He told us in 'Why I'm Suing Big Tech.'
Let me quote his first graph in the piece:
"One of the greatest threats to our democracy today is a powerful group of Big Tech corporations that have teamed up with government to censor the free speech of the American people. This is not only wrong—it is unconstitutional."
When Madam Psaki said yesterday at a press briefing, "we're flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation," she let the cat out of the bag, didn't she? She had done so well earlier yesterday bashing Cuban communism, reversing her earlier position that Cuban communism was a mismanagement problem.
White House, Facebook team up on COVID 'misinformation'
WSJ columnist Kim Strassel and author Vivek Ramaswamey discuss Big Tech concerns on 'Kudlow'
Alas, the whole idea behind Mr. Trump's lawsuit is that our constitutional free speech right is negated if and when the government colludes with media companies, especially media tech companies with their massive platforms. Yes, of course, Facebook and the others are acting as editors and publishers— not just platform information conduits. We know that and that's a big problem.
That's why the section 230 liability shield should be removed, but my view is the bigger problem that President Trump was getting to, is you can't have the government in bed with the purveyors of information. That's what they do in China. That's what they did in the Soviet Union. There's no free speech in these communist countries because the government tells everyone what to do and what not to do, what to say and what not to say.
To quote President Trump's op-ed piece:
"Big Tech and government agencies are actively coordinating to remove content from the platforms according to the guidance of agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention... The tech companies are doing the government’s bidding, colluding to censor unapproved ideas... This coercion and coordination is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has held that Congress can’t use private actors to achieve what the Constitution prohibits it from doing itself. In effect, Big Tech has been illegally deputized as the censorship arm of the U.S. government."
Boom. That's it.
Mark Meadows reacts to ‘troubling’ Biden, Facebook misinformation campaign
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows argues it’s troubling that the Biden administration is collaborating with Facebook to censor certain COVID content.
The Biden Administration, only 8 days after the former president launched his lawsuit and wrote his op-ed piece, essentially came out and fessed up. I'm sure it was unwitting but the best fess-ups are frequently unwitting.
Madam Psaki essentially leaked the truth to the public and for that, I think most conservatives are grateful.
Now, today Madam Psaki and company started backpedaling and talking about trends and narratives and not just individual posts. So what? Trends and narratives are exactly the problem. I don't care about the individual posts.
The White House has no constitutional business trending and narrating into Facebook's ear at all. Their defense, I take it, is that they want to make sure that American people get accurate information. Accurate information, right? Just the science, right?
If I really started processing the ludicrous nature of the White House as the guardian of true information, I would start laughing, then I would start crying, and then I would wreck our whole show— which I don't want to do because I love it. There have been so many flip-flops and false statements coming from the president, my pal Tony Fauci, various politically active doctors, health care workers, governors and mayors— to the point where the public doesn't believe anybody.
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There's no such thing as accurate information and there's no such thing as the White House telling us what's accurate information and, by the way, parenthetically I would say any White House, not just this one. This is a free country and people should have free speech. They are free to believe whomever they want to believe. That's the way it works.
In this business of Big Tech being illegally deputized as the censorship arm of the U.S. government, violates all these freedoms.
