Former Obama Official Advocates Internet Censorship
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)
Shocking stuff, perhaps where things are heading, digital democracy threatened.
It’s at risk of being compromised or abolished, eliminating information dark forces in Washington want suppressed - the way all police states operate.
Ann Ravel formerly served as Obama’s Federal Election Commission chair, earlier as a Justice Department assistant attorney general.
Abby Wood is a law professor opposed to First Amendment rights like Ravel. Irina Dykhne is a law school teaching assistant, as opposed to rule of law principles as her co-writers.
They headlined a deplorable piece couched in deceptive language, titled “Fool Me Once: The Case for Government Involvement in Regulation of ‘Fake News’ and Other Online Advertising” - reckless anti-First Amendment advocacy, “fake news” and “disinformation” left undefined.
They endorsed unacceptable Internet regulation, wanting digital democracy undermined to control content, nonsensically and irresponsibly claiming it’ll “improve voter competence.”
They want ads advocating views they oppose, along with content they call “fake” or “disinformation,” eliminated - the way Hitler’s Germany and Stalinist Russia would have operated if the Internet was around during their times.
They propose letting federal bureaucrats label whatever they consider false, empowering them to call for its removal or face “liability under libel laws.”
They deplorably called it improving online transparency to counter “disinformation” - meaning anything an Internet czar wants suppressed, “corrected” information replacing it.
The real problem lies in Washington and scoundrel media boardrooms, wanting full control over what Americans read and view on television.
They’re complicit in suppressing real news, information and analysis on vital world and national issues - substituting disinformation (the real thing), Big Lies and genuine fake news, rubbish the co-writers apparently endorse.
Their deceptive language tried concealing their objective - government-controlled online content, censorship by any standard, unacceptable in free societies, post-9/11 America increasingly tyrannical, heading for abolishing remaining freedoms altogether.
“(D)isinformation advertising is dangerous to our democracy,” the writers claimed. Nearly all advertising by its nature is deceptive, especially the political kind, pretending to support what’s rejected once in office.
America is a plutocracy, not a democracy. Advertising can’t endanger what doesn’t exist. It helps undermine equity and justice, not expose the nation’s deplorable system, too debauched to fix.
Regulating online content is slippery slope to eliminating what government censors want suppressed, threatening digital democracy - the last frontier of free and open expression.
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