'Free Speech Defense Act': republican offensive against censorship on social media

Georgia Republican Congressman Andrew Clyde will introduce a bill that would prohibit federal agencies from being able to pressure major tech companies to censor content on their networks. The project will also allow legal action to be taken by individuals who have been harmed by censorship on social networks.

The bill, advanced by Andrew Clyde in Just The News, will be called Free Speech Defense Act. It aims to prevent federal officials from collaborating with large technology companies to censor content as occured when the FBI pressured Facebook to censor information about Hunter Biden's laptop. In addition, the bill will attempt to create a legal remedy to compensate those harmed by the violation of freedom of expression.

Prevent the Administration from imposing the label "disinformation"

The bill seeks to prevent the administration from being able to pressure Big Tech to label as "disinformation" any particular content posted on social networks. As Congressman Clyde explained, the bill would prevent "the federal government from partnering with other entities, with these third party groups, with these social media companies, because that is a violation of our Constitution."

Andrew Clyde noted that the bill has already gained several co-sponsors, but he does not expect the legislation to pass until the Republicans take control of Congress.

Republican offensive against censorship: the example of Texas

A few days ago, a federal appeals court upheld the law imposed from Texas to curb censorship of large social media platforms. The ruling was a major defeat for large companies such as Meta (Facebook) or Twitter, which defended banning content from certain users based on their personal point of view, arguing that, without this censorship, the platforms could publish dangerous content.

The Big Tech lawsuit challenged HB 20, a law enacted by Republican Governor Greg Abbott to regulate social media platforms and prevent companies such as Google, Facebook or Twitter from censoring or limiting the freedom of expression of their millions of users.

The ruling, issued by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, established the possibility of the US Supreme Court ruling on the law, which conservatives pointed out as necessary to prevent large technology companies from suppressing the views of private citizens.