Less than two weeks before the 2024 election, legacy media and government leftists are doubling down on their anti-free speech pressure campaign encouraging social media companies to censor.
The New York Times published an article Wednesday asserting that a “torrent of falsehoods” is undermining “America’s democracy.” As proof of this supposed “torrent of falsehoods,” the leftist outlet cited multiple Republicans and specifically targeted X owner Elon Musk, who has endorsed Republican Donald Trump and vowed to protect free speech. “Perhaps the single biggest factor in today’s disinformation landscape has been Mr. Musk’s ownership of Twitter,” the Times wailed.
The Times quoted Jen Easterly, the Biden-Harris administration’s director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which was exposed in the Twitter Files and the Murthy v. Missouri lawsuit as pressuring social media to silence free speech. “[Foreign adversaries] do have different tactics and different approaches to influence operations, but their goals are the same,” Jen Easterly told The Times. “Very simply, they’re looking to undermine American trust in our democratic institutions and the election specifically, and to sow partisan discord.”
Easterly and other officials, The Times hysterically declared, have warned that artificial intelligence (AI) and social media are driving alleged disinformation online. The Times proceeded to give examples, citing Elon Musk and Republican politicians — including presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance — as spreading this supposedly harmful information online.
The Times scaremongered, “Mr. Musk has not only leaned all in for the Republican nominee, former President Donald J. Trump, but he also used his platform to reanimate discredited claims about the validity of the election’s outcome.” It also whined about Vance and Trump repeating reports of illegal migrants stealing pets.
The Times, however, did not mention numerous instances of Big Tech manipulating elections with censorship, including by censoring Covid-19 information and the Hunter Biden scandal before the 2020 election. MRC found that 9.4 percent of Biden voters in swing states would not have voted for him had they known about the latter scandal.
MRC Free Speech America VP Dan Schneider condemned The Times for its aversion to freedom of speech. “It is beyond comprehension how The New York Times can argue against First Amendment rights for individuals but not see how its attack will not eventually harm its own First Amendment rights,” Schneider said. “The Constitution is for all, not just for a few leftwing coastal elites.”
Schneider continued, “The left has clearly abandoned our Constitution. Each of the six Democrat nominees for President since 2000 used to be an advocate for free speech rights. Each has recently turned against our rights to free speech.”
The New York Times and Easterly are not the only media and government entities calling for censorship. Forbes praised the Supreme Court defeat of Murthy v. Missouri in July as “a start” to combatting “misinformation.” Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) are among the lawmakers who pushed social media to crush online speech. In June, MRC exposed seven federal agencies pressuring Big Tech to target free speech.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
