Joe Biden is ending his disastrous presidency the way he started it: by promoting the mass censorship of Americans’ free speech.
During his fumbling Wednesday night Farewell Address, the Democrat commander-in-chief bemoaned decisions by social media companies to forgo biased, left-wing “fact-checkers” that are often used to censor users’ free speech to the benefit of Democrats. The comments appear to be in reference to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent announcement that Facebook and Instagram are dumping such practices in the proclaimed interest of “restoring free expression on [their] platforms.”
“Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies, told for power and for profit,” Biden said. “We must hold the social platforms accountable to protect our children, our families, and our very democracy from the abuse of power.”
Got that? It’s not the weaponization of so-called “fact-checkers” to silence speech that’s the problem — it’s allowing Americans to use their First Amendment rights that’s a threat to “democracy.”
But Americans shouldn’t find Biden’s call for increased Big Tech censorship surprising. After all, it was what helped him get elected president in the first place.
After the New York Post dropped its bombshell Hunter Biden laptop story implicating Joe in his family’s foreign business dealings weeks before the 2020 election, social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook went into full-on censorship mode.
On Twitter, users were not permitted to share the story, even via direct message. The platform further “took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be ‘unsafe,’” as journalist Matt Taibbi revealed in the “Twitter Files.” Meanwhile, Facebook announced shortly after the story broke that it would be “reducing [the story’s] distribution” pending verification by third-party “fact-checkers.”
It was later revealed that the FBI — which authenticated the laptop in late 2019 — pressured these companies in the months leading up to the 2020 contest to censor posts about its content should they arise before the election. Zuckerberg has since admitted Meta’s decision to censor the Post’s reporting on its platforms was based on the FBI’s actions.
The deliberate attempt to prevent Americans from learning about and sharing information on Biden and his family’s business ventures could have swayed the outcome of the election, as some polling has suggested. That is not at all inconsequential and demonstrates the serious harm censorship can bring upon society.
But as we’ve seen throughout his presidency, neither Biden nor his merry band of Marxists care. Within months of taking office, the administration was busy colluding with these same Big Tech companies to censor and remove posts that disagreed with the government’s unscientific Covid narratives. It didn’t matter whether the post contained accurate information — what mattered was controlling what Americans could say and read at any given time.
When the history books are written, Biden will go down as the most anti-free speech president to have served in the Oval Office. His administration’s obsession with weaponizing any available tool to silence its political opponents and everyday Americans in the name of unfettered power was and is a national disgrace.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood