Biden Administration, Big Tech, Leftist Hate Groups Step Up War on Free Speech
Leftists cannot and do not tolerate dissent.
By Robert Spencer
Anti-free speech Leftist activist Heidi Beirich, who formerly worked at the Southern Poverty Law Center to shut down dissidents from the establishment line, and is now continuing her dirty work with a new Leftist hate group called the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, recently said that opposition to mass, unvetted migration “is just a white nationalist argument that America should be for white people, and everybody else is somehow subpar and doesn’t belong.” This unsubstantiated smear heralded the Left’s latest attempt to stigmatize and destroy its opposition, and this time, Big Tech and the United States government are on board with the project.
“The point is to intimidate people and prevent them from articulating these mainstream policy views,” said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies. He added: “If they can shut us up, they have a good chance of preventing these views from being articulated by politicians and writers. [If] so, they wouldn’t have political effect because even if people agree with you, if no one is talking about those issues and no politicians are running on them, then people’s opinions and views can’t translate into policy.”
That’s the idea. And it isn’t just Beirich and her henchmen: Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas revealed Tuesday that he is working with the social media giants to combat “misinformation,” which all too often recently has come to mean “dissent from the establishment political and media line.” What about the First Amendment? They’re working on ways to get around it.
Brad Stone, senior executive editor for Bloomberg News, asked Mayorkas if he considered “misinformation” a “part of your mandate at DHS, and how much resources are you devoting to fighting misinformation such as election falsehoods or Covid disinformation?”
Mayorkas responded: “I think that’s very much within, uh, our domain, uh, misinformation, uh, pointedly, disinformation have very serious and significant ramifications for homeland security. The integrity of our election system, the security of our election system is a prime example of that. And so, um, our office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans under Rob Silver’s leadership, CISA [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency] under Jen Easterly’s leadership, uh, John Cohen leading, uh, the office of intelligence and analysis, uh, in an acting capacity, Samantha Winograd, a senior counselor to the Secretary and our Acting Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism, these are individuals very much involved in their respective workforces, very much involved in addressing misinformation, disinformation, and the threats that they pose to the homeland.”
Instead of pressing Mayorkas about how these officials distinguished what was actual misinformation or disinformation from what was claimed to be by hyper-partisans, Stone lobbed Mayorkas a softball: “I, I know you’ve been doin’ this a long time. Personally, do you ever get, um, you know, or – do you ever get upset by just the ubiquity of falsehoods and mysol – and myth — in our public dialogue these days, and, and the ease with which they’re transported across social media and the Internet?
Speaking very slowly and deliberately, Mayorkas answered: “I, um, I do. I, I think that, uh, false narratives present a threat to our security. The propagation of false narratives is something to be condemned. Uh, we need our leaders, uh, to step up and fight against it, eyah, because the words of leaders, you know, they matter quite a bit. They can be very influential in the public discourse. You know, uh, the Department of Homeland Security, our, our work, uh, rests often at the epicenter of the country’s divide, and the country’s divide is something that has security, um, implications, and is also very saddening. You know, last week, uh, I was privileged to attend a memorial service, ahhm, for Bob Dole, uh, one of our nation’s great leaders and great public servants, uh, and, um, heroes. And the – it spoke of a different time. It spoke of a time when, uh, people could disagree on policy and still work together in the service of a country that we all love. And, um, I, and so many others are working to renew that day.”
How is Mayorkas working to bring back those halcyon days of national unity and mutual respect? By restricting our First Amendment freedom of speech rights, of course. Stone asked him: “And when you talk about leaders who should be held to a higher standard, do you include, uh, Silicon Valley and other technology CEOs? Would you like to see private industry do more to combat misinformation?”
Mayorkas was reassuring: “So, um, uh, I think they’re very committed to, to doing so. I had, uh, very robust discussions, uh, with individuals. You know, the how-to-accomplish-it is something that is not easily navigated. We recognize that. Uh, the First Amendment, uh, concerns are extraordinarily important. It’s a founding principle of our country. I think they’re very dedicated to doing so. And I think the how-to and how-we-can-work-together-with-them is not so facile, and I think we’re all working, uh, through it.”
So Mayorkas is working with Big Tech on ways to circumvent the First Amendment in order to counter what they consider to be “misinformation.” They have to circumvent the First Amendment to do this, because the First Amendment has no provision for gagging those who spread “misinformation.” It assumes that misinformation will be defeated by the truth on an even playing field, and the idea of self-appointed guardians of the truth censoring what they consider to be falsehood is exactly what the Founding Fathers wanted to avoid by articulating the First Amendment in the first place.
Alejandro Mayorkas is working with the social media behemoths to neutralize the freedom of speech, just as Leftist advocacy groups are calling for. It is striking how often Democrat officials turn out to be enemies of this most fundamental and important of freedoms, while establishment Republicans stand by indifferent as they work to destroy it.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 23 books including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad and The History of Jihad. His latest book is The Critical Qur’an. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons