Sen. Mark Warner: “Congress will have to set social media regulations” … says the “era of the Wild West in social media” is over

Total censorship of the internet is headed our way — and Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) is driving the bus. Warner, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has drafted up a 20-point plan for full-blown government seizure of the Internet of Things. The Left is launching an all-out war on American freedom by instituting policies that echo those seen in Communist China, where the internet and journalism are strictly controlled and tightly monitored. The IoT is ultimately a public platform, no different than a town square or other public space — and therefore, should not be subject to censorship.

The left-wing is set on trampling all over the First Amendment rights of American citizens — and Warner has just written up a 23-page piece of legislation to get the ball rolling. If they don’t like what you have to say, Democrats want to take away your right to say it.

Legislative attack on free speech begins

On Capitol Hill, Warner and his political cohorts grilled Silicon Valley leaders over the vulnerabilities of a free, unregulated IoT. Warner contended, “The era of the Wild West in social media is coming to an end, where we go from here, though, is an open question.” According to him, it’s time for Congress to butt in.

The answer to the question of regulating the IoT is not censorship — at least not in the United States. Regulating the internet will, ultimately, lead to the regulation of the free press. And when government regulates speech, it is no longer “free.”

Under the poorly fitted guise of “public good,” leftists like Warner propose that the government can “protect” the public from dangerous thoughts by regulating the IoT, and instituting pathways for government to “educate” people on “media literacy” and for government agencies to take down “threats to democracy.”

As The Republican Standard reports, Warner’s 20-point proposal is broken down into three key sections: combating disinformation, protecting user privacy, and promoting competition in tech. But as the Standard notes, most of Warner’s proposals fail to accomplish the latter.

Among the most controversial of Warner’s ideas is his proposed changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Warner’s proposal suggests that platforms should be legally accountable for “state-law torts (defamation, false light, public disclosure of private facts) for failure to take down deep fake or other manipulated audio/video content.”

Warner himself notes that distinguishing “true disinformation” from “satire” could prove difficult. Free speech advocates are vehemently against this measure. As the Standard argues, ” Such revisions to Section 230 could mean that the threat of liability will encourage both social media platforms and online service providers to tip towards the side of content takedown, even if such content does not violate standards of practice.”

Re-education or brainwashing?

Worse still, Warner has proposed a “re-education” measure, funded by the feds and implemented by the states. The “public initiative for media literacy,” as he calls it, would be “focused on building media literacy from an early age [which] would help build long-term resilience to foreign manipulation of our democracy.”

This sounds an awful lot like a diplomatic code for brainwashing. How this program would work, or what would be taught, is not specified — again, prompting concerns about government overreach. Now Warner wants the government to tell people what they should and should not read, hear or see?

As sources note, if even just a handful of Warner’s tyrannical ideas become laws, freedom of speech as we know it will cease to exist — at least on the internet. Further, the costs of Warner’s measures greatly prohibit the formation of new social media platforms and other tech.

The regressive policies of the Left will do nothing but crush freedom and stifle innovation. But maybe that’s what they want.

Read more stories about proposed leftist policies that would change our country at Censored.news.

Sources for this article include:

ZeroHedge.com

FCW.com

FoxNews.com

TheRepublicanStandard.com