Kamala Harris Hints at Government Censorship of Social Media
Jose Nino
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Kamala Harris recently declared that her administration would hold social media platforms “accountable” for “hate”.
At an event in Detroit, she laid out her plan to combat domestic terrorism.
During the Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner at the Detroit NAACP, Harris said “We will hold social media platforms accountable for the hate infiltrating their platforms, because they have a responsibility to help fight against this threat to our democracy.”
Alleged cases of “online extremism” have become the focus for lawmakers on the Left in recent months.
According to The Hill, they argue that white supremacist shooters “used social media platforms to amplify their messages before attacking places of worship in recent months.”
Harris drew attention to a series of attacks on minorities during her speech, mentioning the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, the mosque bombing in Minnesota, and a recent case of three black churches being set on fire in Louisiana.
The California Senator declared that “2018 was the deadliest year on record for domestic terrorism since the Oklahoma City bombing more than 20 years ago, and I’m telling you, we can’t feed it, I’m telling you I won’t ignore it, I won’t tolerate it.”
She vowed to double the civil rights division of the Department of Justice, then she shifted her focus to social media platforms.
Harris declared, “If you profit off of hate, if you act as a megaphone for misinformation or cyber warfare, if you don’t police your platforms, we are going to hold you accountable,”
During the Christchurch, New Zealand massacre, the murderer livestreamed his mosque attacks on Facebook, which drew considerable outrage.
The incident re-ignited calls for more control over social media platforms.
Last week, Facebook announced that it had banned a batch of high-profile figures who they had deemed “dangerous” for spreading hateful and fear-mongering messages. The banned individuals included conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, right-wing media personality Alex Jones, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and others.
Shortly after Facebook announced the bans, President Trump on Twitter vowed to “monitor the censorship” of conservatives on social media
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