Dear Senators Klobuchar & Lujan: Now Do You See Why Letting HHS Censor “Misinformation” Is A Terrible Idea?
from the maybe-don't-give-this-guy-such-powers? dept
You have likely heard that Donald Trump has nominated conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his next Secretary of Health and Human Services. This is dangerous and cruel for a very long list of reasons, but his nomination also exposes the critical flaws in a bill proposed by Senators Amy Klobuchar and Ben Ray Lujan just a few years ago.
In 2021, Senators Klobuchar and Lujan introduced a bill that would have given the Secretary of Health and Human Services the power to unilaterally declare what constitutes “health misinformation” online. Under the proposed law, a new exemption to Section 230 would be created for any content deemed misinformation by the HHS Secretary, which could open tech platforms up to lawsuits, creating immense pressure to block such content.
At the time, the bill seemed misguided and unconstitutional. In the hands of an anti-science zealot like RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary, it would be catastrophic.
From the bill:
Not later than 30 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in consultation with the heads of other relevant Federal agencies and outside experts determined appropriate by the Secretary, shall issue guidance regarding what constitutes health misinformation…
And then, any site hosting content so designated would be “treated as a publisher or speaker” of such “health misinformation,” effectively opening them up to lawsuits.
If that bill had become law, RFK Jr. could declare that factual information debunking his anti-vaccine conspiracy theories is “misinformation.” He could threaten lawsuits, or just unleash others to sue, to force social media platforms to silence anyone who corrects his dangerous nonsense about vaccines and autism.
Thankfully, Klobuchar and Lujan’s bill went nowhere, and for good reason. Giving a single political official the power to define “misinformation” runs counter to core First Amendment principles. What’s deemed “misinformation” could change radically from one administration to the next, creating a censorship regime beholden to electoral whims.
The RFK Jr. nomination illustrates exactly why we continually call out these kinds of bills. Because this is not the kind of power you want to give to the government (nor should you be able to under the First Amendment).
And if you don’t think that RFK Jr. wouldn’t take advantage of such a law had it been passed, you haven’t been paying attention. While RFK Jr. has been cosplaying as a “free speech” supporter of late, the reality is that he has a long and problematic history of trying to suppress speech and to punish people for their speech.
Even his latest “free speech crusade” is really a series of censorial failed lawsuits against social media companies for using their free speech rights to moderate his conspiracy theory nonsense. Even the very Trumpist Fifth Circuit just laughed one of his cases out of court a couple weeks ago.
But there’s an even longer, more disturbing history as well. A decade ago, he talked about how he believes his political opponents should be jailed for their speech, even calling them war criminals and accusing them of “treason.” Somewhat hilariously, at the time, he was talking about those who denied climate change and billionaires “impoverishing the rest of us.”
“They are enjoying making themselves billionaires by impoverishing the rest of us. Do I think they should be in jail, I think they should be enjoying three hots and a cot at the Hague with all the other war criminals,” Kennedy declared.
He might want to take a look at his new boss and the crew he’s hanging around with, given that Donald Trump has repeatedly denied climate change exists and promised to ramp up fossil fuel production in the country. And if we’re talking about billionaires impoverishing the rest of us, just take a look around you, Bobby.
Either way, the point is that RFK Jr. has a long history of deeply authoritarian and censorial instincts. He’s not a free speech supporter by any means. If Klobuchar and Lujan’s bill had been law, we would have just handed him the ability to censor any pushback to his dangerous views.
So, next time, can people actually listen to us when we raise the alarm about how problematic censorial bills are, and how they would be abused in the wrong hands?
Filed Under: 1st amendment, amy klobuchar, ben ray lujan, conspiracy theories, disinformation, health and human services, health misinformation, rfk jr., section 230
Comments on “Dear Senators Klobuchar & Lujan: Now Do You See Why Letting HHS Censor “Misinformation” Is A Terrible Idea?”
If the election proved anything, it’s that most people have a woefully delayed reaction time to these warnings.
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What, like 8-9 years? Longer? I’m still waiting for the grand realization in most people.
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I’m 100% with him, because only him can ban chemtrails.
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“because only him can ban chemtrails.”
It’s not the chemtrails that caused your brain damage son.
It’s the meth
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It’s not meth. His teeth are just missing because the took the fluoride out of the tap water.
If the government had been allowed to hit anti-vaxxers and liars hard enough during the pandemic, I’d wager that people like RFK Jr., Trump, and Musk wouldn’t be in the position of power that they’re in right now.
Letting the likes of Joe Rogan and RFK Jr. spread lies about COVID-19 and the efficacy of vaccines, thus increasing the death toll of the disease, did not make us a more resilient or robust or noble nation. It just further cemented us a nation of fools. It was not just ignorant people who listened to the liars that die or suffer because of said lies; friends & family & coworkers & more got infected, too. Again, defending the rights of people to spread lies that literally got people killed did not make us a more resilient or responsible country. Just a stupid one.
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Society should not be compelled to accommodate sexual fetishes as a matter of civil rights.
If you want your girlfriend to participate in something weird, the administrative state doesn’t come in and force her to do what you want. Same principle should apply to society at scale.
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And yet tossing molotov cocktails in random directions remains illegal.
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Vaccines and information about disease & public health where it can quite literally be a life-or-death matter =/= accommodation of fetishes in the bedroom. The government has a vested interest in keeping the spread of deadly diseases in check.
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Rightoids literally cannot stop thinking about sex, and they’re making it all of our problem.
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Vaccinations are not a sexual fetish.
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Hey, MAGAt. Think about the following proposition: A girl that doesn’t die of a vaccine-preventable disease is a girl that grows up to become a fully consenting woman? Still anti-vax?
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Socialist revolutions often are captured by authoritarians. This is because so many on the left believe that authoritarian power is okay so long as the good guys start in power and the good guys can keep the bad authoritarians out of power and with strong enough control, we can finally convince everyone how right we are once we silence the misinformation of the right.
As we saw with trump, investigations and convictions did nothing to impact voter support. Claims that if we had instead done this prosecution or that prosecution or just done them earlier and Trump wouldn’t be in power and therefore its okay to give power to define truth to whomever is in the white house seem to ignore the reality that
A) SCOTUS was in the end batting for trump
B) SCTOUS would have been unlikely to bless strict scrutiny of such a law that worked to Trump’s detriment
C) Convictions, indictments, and civil judgements completely failed to reduce the power of the GOP ticket.
The problem is what an anti-vaxxer would do with the power to define truth and lies, and the idea that had we just used the authoritarianism we wouldn’t have bad people in power is fantasy wishcasting disconnected from historical assessment.
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I want to know what you think we as a country gained (aside from far more dead people) by letting Fox News, RFK Jr., Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, Trump and more lie about vaccines and COVID-19.
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The means justify the ends.
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Not giving the next authoritarian, regardless of what label they apply to their politics, or which side of the isle they claim it comes from, the congressional mandate to decide Truth.
If that wasn’t clear, could you let me know where I lost you? If claims were accurate and somehow shutting down vaccine misinfo was a deathblow to a second Trump term, its a stupid and absurd belief to think there would not be someone willing to abuse the power to criminalize speech that doesn’t fit the party line in the administration, or the next. A return to the party of Bush and Reagan after the death of trumpism is still a party that was known for lying about the health impacts of drugs and was alraedy supporting vaccine skepticism.
Re: Re: Re:2
Trump has a horrid trifecta and has a mandate from his base to decide what is true and what is not, which will hurt and kill even more people. The only thing we really did gain from letting Trump & Co. lie about COVID-19 and vaccines was a pile of dead bodies.
James, you’re just standing on top of a pile of corpses and telling us that it was necessary while the next corpse factory in the form of H5N1 revs up. The tradeoffs we got for letting lies about the pandemic spread were not worth it, and just emboldened and solidified anti-intellectualism and anti-science movements in the U.S.. Other countries that actually have intelligent people that put saving lives over principles will survive, while America will burn down.
Re: Re: Re:3
Odd, though: if one person in 20 had voted for Harris instead, in only a handful of states, the election would have gone the other way.
And, you assume that said base are uniform in their opinions. Some voted against Harris because she was a woman, or “of color”, or “not of my tribe (ie not republican)”. Some voted for Trump not knowing that programs and services they rely upon will be destroyed.
Please move your concept of a “mandate from his base” into the propaganda box. It’s something you say only if you want a threadbare excuse.
Re: Re: Re:2
There will always be someone willing to abuse the power. The issue is, did the restraint meaningfully slow them, or was it unilateral disarmament? The thing about denying a Congressional mandate is they can get a majority in Congress and pass the mandate anyway or (potentially) illegally abuse anyway. If either of those come to pass, denying the mandate will not have done anything.
Trump is an example of this. The GOP majority could pass this exact bill (or worse) on Jan 21st. Not passing this bill previously will have been no legal/practical constraint. It may have mattered if they didn’t get a majority in both Houses, if DOJ/SCOTUS will enforce the protection, or if they choose to leave it in place.
The argument for restraint almost always heavily relies on the assumption that not passing the power in good times would restrain the authoritarian. It’s a trade off, and free speech advocates usually imply it’s somewhat symmetric. “We can’t restrict bad speech, because then the bad guys can restrict good speech” becomes “we can’t bad speech, because then the bad guys can restrict good speech in the narrow band where there are still strong enough norms to enforce it”. It’s basically never just “we shouldn’t restrict even bad speech”.
You can still make the argument (or try to make it on principle), but it is a much harder sell. And free speech advocates have generally shied away from making it, because it’s way easier to justify the symmetric version.
Whether that will happen is not something people are taking for granted, right now. Never mind whether the protection will be in any way intact.
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“the congressional mandate to decide Truth.”
This is a problem .. some people think they can simply declare a thing to be “true” completely devoid of any supporting evidence, analysis or even a discussion of same.
“Truth” to some folk means “What I think is so”.
Truth to many people is supported by fact, in the absence of same there will be doubt and questions about the missing facts.
I do not need a bunch of two bit ass clowns telling me what is and what is not true. This is simply stupid, putting idiots in charge of shit will not end up with good fertilizer.
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America will not survive unless opinion and fact are once again made separate. Nor should it. A Christo-fascist state deserves nothing but death.
Given the quality of your public education and the Grand Old Pissheads’ tendencies toward undermining and injecting Jesus into the process, that will take a generation, if not more. That’s if it can be done at all.
I bet in ten years or so you’re gonna start seeing Jesus humpers turning to terrorism when simply shouting their insanities at people has gotten old, but it’ll be labelled something else by the Jesus humpers you’ve collectively given the keys to your entire kingdom.
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Who was in power in 2020? Who would have defined what misinformation was during the worst part of the pandemic?
Don’t worry, I’m sure the answer will come to you eventually.
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Who was in power in 2021 while the pandemic still raged on?
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The depth of your magical thinking is shocking in its shallowness.
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FTFY. YW.
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No. And also still illegal.
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When Trump gets into office his appointees should fire every DOJ employee who even peripherally abetted the criminal prosecution of a gender medicine whistleblower under the pretext of violating HIPAA.
The prosecutor, Tina Ansari, may also need to face some criminal charges herself.
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How long will you wait before you sincerely call for the arrest, prosecution, imprisonment, and possibly even execution of all transgender people for fraud and treason?
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Plenty of Germans were all for it during the holocaust. What makes you think he’s not what he’s portraying?
If you wouldn't trust your worse enemy with a power...
Then: ‘Let’s give a government agency the power to determine what is and is not health misinformation and demand it’s removal, what could go wrong?’
Now: ‘Oh.’
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There’s a missing step, which it appears that those with faulty logic believe. Which is:
“Although this power is problematic in the wrong hands, it will be okay if we simply win every election, forever. And passing this legislation will assist us in doing so”.
You can see this logic in action with the third post, above.
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I hope you keep that in mind whenever conservatives/Republicans/Trumpists try to pass laws that give themselves more power. Seems like you only give a shit when it’s liberals/Democrats doing it.
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I’m reminded of the line item veto. A republican congress gave it to Bill Clinton first, although it was eventually sued into non-existence, unfortunately.
But I am rather skeptical of republicans giving the federal government more power. In general, republicans need to continue their tradition of handing power back to the states, and dismantling ineffective government bureaucracy. The Patriot Act was a mistake, although that was very bipartisan, and even passed the Senate with a vote of 98-1. It was hardly a unilateral power grab.
Re: Re: Re:2
Then maybe you can answer One Simple Question.
Yes or no: Do you believe the government should have the right to compel any interactive web service into hosting any third-party speech that the service would otherwise refuse to host?
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Re: Re: Re:3
Yes, as long as they’re being forced to host right-wing content.
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It depends. Private parties should be able to litigate a contract in court. As an example, if someone’s service was terminated because the service discovered that the user is black, then the user could ask for specific performance, plus damages. And the government will enforce it. So the government already could compel hosting, and I’m hopeful that we could agree on that.
This gets into a debate on the appropriate role of government. Even libertarians believe in a minimum level of government that includes military, emergency services, and a court that can resolve and enforce private contract disputes.
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Way to dodge the question, you coward.
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No, it doesn’t. Yes or no: If an interactive web service refuses to host (as an example) religious-themed anti-abortion content, should the federal government have the right to force that service into hosting that content? And just to head off another possible “well ACKSHUALLY”-type digression: Yes, the service is privately owned but open to the public, which means the service—like all other services of its kind—is currently under no legal obligation to host any and all speech, even if it bills itself as a “public forum”.
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Re: Re: Re:5
I’m glad that we can agree that the government CAN compel speech under certain circumstances. Worded in such a way, it sounds bad, but we actually agree that it can happen.
So that’s not the real objection. Let’s move some goalposts!
The real question is “under what circumstances can the government compel speech?” As we can see, it still depends. Your own setup is becoming increasingly conditional.
I generally don’t buy into the “otherwise objectionable” argument. Instead we need to judge the contract, and the circumstances under which it is applied. Let the courts decide. If the speech isn’t disallowed by the contract, then the hosting company might need some extraordinary reasons to refuse service for ordinary messages, and will need to live up to the contract.
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You’re still refusing to answer a simple and direct question with a simple and direct answer. So let me personalize it and see if you’re willing to be more than a coward who doesn’t want his beliefs on the record.
Yes or no: If you own a Mastodon instance and you ban speech that you dislike (doesn’t matter what it is), should the federal government have the right to legally force you into hosting that speech on your instance? In this situation, there are no extenuating circumstances or nuances, no “contracts” or whatever the fuck—it’s about you, your choice not to host certain speech because you don’t like it, and whether you believe the government should make you host that speech at metaphorical gunpoint.
Also:
No, we can’t, and you can feel free to stop shoving words down my throat that didn’t first come from it.
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The argument is regressing. If a hosting service provided service to a man for awhile, and then discovered that he is black, and so terminated his service because of that, does he have recourse?
I say absolutely yes. He can take the case to court. The court will compel the service to be restored. The government will force the internet provider to host. I’m totally fine with this. I think we deserve an answer as to whether you think this outcome could and should occur.
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This is not my question. This is not my argument. You are dodging the question so you don’t have to be on the record about it.
My question is about a simple idea: If a service like Twitter wants to ban a certain kind of speech (e.g., racial slurs), it has that right. The government can’t force that service to host that speech. I want you to tell me whether you think the government should have the right to force Twitter to host racial slurs. All this shit about contracts and whatnot misses the forest for the trees, and intentionally so—because you know that if you answer the question how I know you’ll answer it, you’ll forever be on record as supporting compelled speech (and association!) under the most benign of circumstances. You will never answer my question, but I will keep asking it because every time you dodge it, you prove how much of a coward you truly are, for you have been, are now, and will forever be unable to answer One Simple Question.
Re: Re: Re:9
I think we’ll need to agree to disagree. My argument is founded on the basis that the government can, and in fact under certain circumstances, DOES compel speech, and rightfully so sometimes. Yes, there is some kind of contract or agreement basis for hosting. Whether the government can get involved in its enforcement: it depends.
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I once again point out that you’re refusing to answer the question I posed to you multiple times in multiple ways. I’ll simplify it one more time. If you refuse to answer it then, you are a coward and will always be a coward.
Consider the following:
Having considered the above, I want you to answer the next question with only a “yes” or a “no”. The question is this:
Do you believe the federal government should have the right to force Twitter, or any service like it, into hosting speech that those services currently refuse to host?
If you can’t or won’t answer that with only a “yes” or a “no”, you will prove my point about your cowardice…and you’ll provide the answer anyway.
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He’ll never answer the question, because the actual answer is “yes, as long as it’s right-wing content they’re being forced to host.” On some level, even if subconscious, Koby knows he’s a raging hypocrite.
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Wow, man. Just wow. You really are a coward.
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You already did that with your answer to Stephen’s original question. Let’s not move them anymore, huh?
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“YUM YUM! Boot leather with a hint of brainworm!”
Koby probably
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Do you trust any of the currently-selected Trump cabinet with any government power? Any government power can be abused, so why not just get rid of government entirely?
Re: Re: When abuse isn't a bug but the feature
The difference is ease of abuse. It’s one thing if a law can be loophole’d, twisted and abused to attain a terrible outcome as that at least provides a chance to prevent by others(like judges) refusing to play along, it’s another thing entirely if that outcome is the intended goal and the only safeguard is ‘I sure hope my worst enemy never holds the position and power I currently have.’
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The problem with this logic is you can just as easily apply it to anything else the government does. Like nukes, vaccines, defamation, etc. There’s a certain level of trust that’s necessary for society to function. Electing people who appoint people like RFK fundamentally breaks that model.
Like, do we not want to give HHS the power to regulate vaccines? It’s the exact same argument.
You’re not going to have a government left if you only include things you would trust RFK with.
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This is sadly true.
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There’s a difference in kind between gicing the government the power to regulate vaccines and the power to regulate speech. Speech can be used to keep an opponent from gaining power. Vaccines (real ones) cannot.
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There’s a reason I included other examples. Government functions like armies, nukes, and (most importantly) other speech laws like defamation, can keep an opponent from gaining power. We still have them.
Speech does deserve special protections because of that risk, but it is not unique, and it’s not even unique compared to other speech. Government powers include (and must include, to some degree) functions that can be used to prevent an opponent from gaining power. You cannot avoid that and have a functioning government.
That’s also assuming equal enforcement of the law, which itself is not a given (see: Media Matters).
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Good ole Mike sitting on Pinocchio’s nose telling him, “lie to me you fucker, lie to me.”
FFS
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That’s not the way I’d spell ‘Trump’.
I would prefer to consult with those who are knowledgeable, educated and experienced in the field of study related to the information or lack thereof.
From what I have read, JFK Jr does not have any of these; knowledge, education and experience in the field of medicine. I would not listen to anything the guy has to say on the subject.
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If that nomination goes through Mengele will — with very good reason — be laughing in his grave for years and years and years to come.
Nothing short of an overwhelming invasion or a nuclear strike could be remotely as dangerous as putting that cretinous halfwit in that position.
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Neither does the current HHS secretary. This isn’t the Surgeon General we’re talking about.
There’s been a serious problem across the world that politicians try to legislate out of the genuinely strange notion that they will be in charge forever. The idea that someone else can and will eventually come in and have different ideas than them (for good or for bad) seems to go wholly ignored, which is weird. Do they know something we don’t? Is the world government actually ruled in aeternum by liches?
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This s true.
For example, I give you the Indiana PI bill
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_pi_bill
Censorship
Honesty please
What’s the use of talking about facts and reason when the country just elected a bunch of aholes who are almost completely impervious to facts and reason, and were obviously so? Why does the law matter when you have far more Kacsmaryks and Cannons? What about when SCOTUS itself doesn’t care about facts and the law? The boding is getting terrifying.