Justin Amash Protects Big Tech’s Immunity Privileges to Enact Orwellian Nightmare

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Jun 23, 2019

Impeachment cheerleader Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) is rallying to protect Big Tech monopolists and their ability to capriciously kick conservative and libertarian voices off their platforms while keeping the legal immunity granted to them by the federal government.

Amash took to his Twitter account to whine against the Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act, a common sense reform that will be introduced by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) to eliminate special privileges for social media corporations if they acted as publishers rather than as neutral platforms.

Amash claims that removing Big Tech’s sweetheart exemptions in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, thus protecting free speech from Orwellian corporate censorship, would somehow be dystopian.

Section 230 exempts social media entities like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter from being liable for user-published content on their platforms. They are not regulated as publishers, but have started behaving like ones in recent years by implementing Draconian censorship policies to strangle the voices of primarily right-wing dissidents.

“With Section 230, tech companies get a sweetheart deal that no other industry enjoys: complete exemption from traditional publisher liability in exchange for providing a forum free of political censorship,” Hawley said in a statement regarding the need for his legislation. “Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, big tech has failed to hold up its end of the bargain.”

“There’s a growing list of evidence that shows big tech companies making editorial decisions to censor viewpoints they disagree with,” Hawley added. “Even worse, the entire process is shrouded in secrecy because these companies refuse to make their protocols public. This legislation simply states that if the tech giants want to keep their government-granted immunity, they must bring transparency and accountability to their editorial processes and prove that they don’t discriminate.”

Amash’s faux-libertarian viewpoints, as usual, echo that of the billionaire oligarch Koch Brothers. They are opposing changes in the regulatory framework as well, considering the status quo where conservative, libertarian, and pro-Trump voices are capriciously censored by Silicon Valley liberals to be perfectly acceptable.

“Senator Hawley’s misguided legislation sets the table for stricter government control over free expression online,” Americans for Prosperity Policy Analyst Billy Easley said in a statement.

“Eroding the crucial protections that exist under Section 230 creates a scenario where government has the ability to police your speech and determine what you can or cannot say online,” Easley added.

The Koch bros’ network is even teaming with George Soros and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to devise new ways to enforce censorship on digital platforms. Amash is a regular speaker at events hosted by the Koch-funded Young Americans for Liberty.

Hawley remains undaunted by the derision from Amash and his powerful globalist backers, as he continues his mission to actually protect freedom of speech: