U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced a bill on Friday which would prevent the U.S. government from using taxpayer money to censor online opinions and news it opposes, in a blatant violation of the First Amendment.
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“I’ve introduced HR 8519 to eliminate taxpayer funding of online censorship. The Twitter Files showed the government colludes with private companies and universities to violate the 1st Amendment. Congress must use the power of the purse to end this unconstitutional activity,” said Rep. Massie on X.
The text of Massie’s bill, H.R. 8519, entitled “A bill to prohibit the obligation or expenditure of Federal funds for disinformation research grants, and for other purposes” has not yet been fully released to the public, and thus it remains unclear how, precisely, it would work towards Massie’s goal.
Massie’s bill comes in response to revelations in recent years showing that the Biden Administration has pressured companies into censoring material critical of the COVID vaccines and President Joe Biden’s response to the pandemic.
In August 2023, subpoenaed documents revealed that the Biden Administration pressured Facebook in 2021 to alter its algorithms to prevent users from seeing any content suggesting that COVID vaccines were ineffective or dangerous.
Those documents showed that Facebook complied with government pressure, and reduced visibility on articles from conservative news outlets such as the Daily Wire, and highlighting articles from mainstream media which praised the vaccines.
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Biden Administration officials also pressured Amazon into reducing visibility for books critical of COVID vaccines, which led to the company banning at least one book outright.
Censorship at the behest of government agencies to promote President Joe Biden before he even took office.
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After Elon Musk purchased Twitter, and re-named it X, he released internal documents which suggested that, while President Biden was running for office, the FBI pressured Twitter into censoring tweets about Hunter Biden’s controversial laptop, in an attempt to conceal material which would have been damaging to Biden’s campaign.
The disclosures revealed that the federal government and former intelligence officials leaned on social media companies to throttle the dissemination of critical reporting on Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, in the weeks prior to the 2020 election — a move that undoubtedly benefited Biden’s election odds.
Massie’s law would prevent Biden from spending taxpayer dollars to continue censoring opinions which could harm his re-election efforts.
