The government can’t be trusted to label information as true or false, the American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday.
The left-leaning civil liberties group expressed mistrust in the government’s ability to serve as an arbiter of information after President Joe Biden’s administration talked about cracking down on disinformation spread via social media platforms.
“No matter which party is in power, the government cannot be trusted to label ‘truth’ or ‘fiction’ any more than Facebook or Twitter can,” the ACLU tweeted.
BIDEN PROVES BIG TECH’S POWER CAN AND WILL BE EXPLOITED
The organization cited President Donald Trump’s April 2020 claim that COVID-19 would “go away” and President Barack Obama’s dismissal of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden’s claims about widespread surveillance as evidence of presidents’ untrustworthiness.
“The president should know that it’s not Section 230 that protects social media companies from liability for false information. It’s the First Amendment,” the ACLU continued. “The Constitution protects people — and social media companies — from government censorship campaigns.”
The Twitter thread was praised by people across the political spectrum, with Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu, Libertarian Rep. Justin Amash, and conservative news personality Monica Crowley all applauding the ACLU’s stance.
On Friday, Biden accused Facebook of “killing people” with its reluctance to censor disinformation, though he later softened his stance.
Facebook then released a scathing statement arguing the White House was “looking for scapegoats for missing their vaccine goals” after Biden came up just short of his July 4 vaccination goal.
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The White House also announced last Thursday it would be “flagging problematic posts for Facebook,” with White House press secretary Jen Psaki saying senior administration officials were engaging with social media platforms to combat the spread of “misinformation specifically on the pandemic.”
