This this is not Trump-related, I moved the reply here.
When the government asks private companies to censor information, this becomes the issue. How do you know nothing was censored? I provided a link that the government asked to take down a parody account. I think that is censorship. Plus we don't have the all the information yet.
I don't know anything about that particular account. When I think of a parody account, I think of something that makes no pretense of being the real thing (Devin Nunes' Cow is clearly not Devin Nunes). On the other hand, AnthonyFauciOfficial is a lot less obvious. What was the content like? Why would someone specifically have to say "It is not actually one of ours:"? If it's a parody, that should be obvious, if not from the name, then from the content. Did you follow this Instagram account? What were its contents? How do you know it was a parody?
By the way, how many Facebook/Instagram accounts post material critical of Fauci to this day (I guess over 10,000)? Out of thousands of account, we have this (and I'm sure there are another dozen or so) selected for removal. If censorship is the goal, this is a truly 1%-assed way to go about it (half-assed would have been far too generous). On the other hand, if the CDC wants to maintain the difference between official documentation and material not from the CDC, this outcome is exactly what we would expect.
The DOJ is "refusing to produce communications between the most senior officials and social media companies". Why hide it, if everything is square?
Everything is not square, but that doesn't have much to do with censoring political opinions. We don't have everything because the DoJ doesn't want us to understand that almost every American is carrying around a government tracking device. They have back doors into every big social media site and every major software company. They are capable of tracking our location going back years.
Local law enforcement agencies from suburban Southern California to rural North Carolina have been using an obscure cellphone tracking tool, at times without search warrants, that gives them the power to follow people’s movements months back in time, according to public records and internal emails o
www.snopes.com
This is the beginning and will continue with shutting down all stories that would hurt any administration. Why suppress the information?
What were the stories being shut down on AnthonyFauciOfficial? Let's say Bucknutz is a member of the state legislature. Should I be able to open a Twitter account as the real Bucknutz, spout out offensive rhetoric pretending to be the real Bucknutz. and take political positions that Bucknutz opposes as a part of this pretense? Or, do you think you should be allowed to present your own positions as you see fit, without another account misrepresenting you. Is it free speech to steal your identity and speak for you?
Again, why is only one account being listed here, when there where hundreds or thousand existing that could have been listed? Why single this one out?
So you can only post what the CDC says? You shouldn't post about information that pushes back against some of its claims?
Last I heard, no one was stopping antivaxxers from posting. They were just marking the posts as containing misleading information. You don't think lies should be marked as lies? Why do you want to censor Facebook and Twitter?
Why do they have to go to the government?
Do you have a better source that the CDC for information about infectious diseases/vaccines? If so, I don't have any problem with them using that source. What's your suggestion?
Okay, let's use this example. If Trump gets reelected and his administration pushes information they want out into the public and asks Facebook, Instagram, Twitter to censor anyone who posts information that goes directly against their message, you would be for that? Because they are the government? Why use any other source.
None of that happening in the documents Schmitt offered, AFAICT. However, if someone unauthorized got on Twitter claiming to
be Donald Trump, I fully support Trump being able to have that account taken down. How about you?
I would rather have the government stay out of private companies.
The government has the best science resources because the government funds most of the science. Why should companies take advantage of that?
If I was a Social Media company, why wouldn't you want to have many medical professionals put out information and a person can choose to what to read or research.
Again, all that's happening is that certain posts are being marked as misleading. Faulty medical information can do serious harm.
Also, are you for censoring medical information from non-medical professionals (because you'll have a magnitude greater non-medical sources, some of them falsely claiming to be MDs)? If not, your use of "medical professionals" was either highly naive or grossly misleading.
What's the difference between traditional media and their "information"
Dan Donovan gave an ignorant take, and Abigail Marone mischaracterized what the President said. They still have active accounts and aren't even marked as misleading. The accounts' existence disproves your claims.
This comes right from the President...this was completely false as well.
"... so you do not spread the disease ..." is only an absolute statement to people who want to find fault with what he's saying.
stats.oecd.org
