These Hearings Could Be Really Valuable If They Were Run By Competent People

A couple of days ago, lawyer/blogger/public intellectual wannabe Jonathan Turley headlined one of his pieces “Congress is Set to Expose What May be the Largest Censorship System in United States History.” Given that Turley is not prone to hysteria, that deserves a “wow” and a read. 

What he’s talking about is the forthcoming series of hearings to be conducted by the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. 

Curmie saw your eyebrow go up, Gentle Reader. Yes, it’s a bullshit title, and yes, it’s partisan as hell (the January 6 committee wasn’t?). And the members are among the worst political hacks either party has to offer (and that’s saying rather a lot): Jim Jordan, Darrell Issa, Matt Gaetz, Linda Sanchez, Debbie Wasserman Schultz… Curmie can’t decide whether “rogue’s gallery” or “clown car” is the more appropriate term. 

Unfortunately, committee membership notwithstanding, we really do need to get to the bottom of what the hell is going on in decision-making at the major social media platforms, and, more importantly, of the qualitative and quantitative interference by government officials in the suppression of stories that might affect the electoral process. 

It’s enough of a problem that private corporations like Twitter and Meta (i.e., Facebook) can arbitrarily decide what can and can’t be posted on their platforms. Curmie doesn’t use Twitter enough to have run into any problems with them, but Facebook’s inane obeisance to an algorithm that doesn’t work has been a thorn in his side for years, for both my personal account and as Curmie. Some, but by no means all, of Curmie’s frustrations have been referenced on this blog: here, here, and here, for example. 

But what seems to have happened at Twitter in particular is far more troubling than an overzealous algorithm. Let’s be up front about this: a lot of this came to light when Elon Musk bought Twitter and began his campaign to restore free speech, truth, justice, and the American way. As might be expected when anything gets turned over to a wealthy, eminently mediocre, narcissist, not everything went as well as we were assured it will. But, to be fair, some good did come out of Musk’s cleansing of the stables. 

Most of this was the result of Musk’s release of thousands of documents from Twitter, and Matt Taibbi’s reporting, such as the revelation that “Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the [Hunter Biden laptop] story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be ‘unsafe.’ They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g., child pornography.” Indeed, there seems to have been a significant amount of pressure on Twitter from the FBI and even the CIA to quash stories that could work to the benefit of the Biden campaign’s opposition. 

As everyone is no doubt aware, President Trump was “permanently” suspended from the platform (he’s been restored since the Musk takeover); less well known is spokeswoman Kaleigh McEnany’s being locked out of her account. Perhaps even more insidious, because less apparent, was the process of “shadowbanning,” in which conservative voices (in this case) weren’t silenced, per se, but their reach was significantly curtailed. Among those shadowbanned: Fox News host Dan Bongino, Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk, and Stanford University's Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.  No, Curmie doesn’t think they’re worth listening to, but that’s not the point.

By the way, Curmie is well aware that only the government can “censor” someone if we use that term correctly, but it’s difficult to argue with Turley that what happened at Twitter amounted to “censorship by surrogate.” One other thought: the FBI has a grim history of interference in public affairs, going back to the racist tactics of J. Edgar Hoover. Maybe it’s time for a complete overhaul, huh? 

Indeed, it is telling that Curmie, hardly a GOP partisan, found himself relying on sources like Fox News and the Washington Examiner to write this piece. We can reasonably believe that such media outlets aren’t necessarily going to provide unbiased representations of events, but the more left-leaning agencies are deafening in their silence about misbehavior that makes their guys look like the unethical authoritarians that so many of them truly are. 

Of course—equal time and all that—the Trump administration and campaign were also corrupt as hell, and also tried to strongarm Twitter (they just weren’t as successful at it) but that doesn’t excuse the unethical tactics on the other side. Even apart from the distasteful whataboutism in this approach, however, is the saddening fact that the majority of Democrats, or at least of Democratic pols, seem to want to respond with crap like “the First Amendment isn’t absolute.” 

No, of course, it isn’t, but the exceptions are things like treason, slander and incitement, not political difference. California congressman Ro Khanna appears to be the only elected Democrat concerned about stuff like freedom of speech. Expression is protected, even if it’s wrong, even if it’s intentionally wrong. That’s what the 1st Amendment is about, and Curmie agrees that messy is better than repressive. 

If someone gets the facts wrong, then correct the record. Hell, you can even make fun of them for being an idiot, especially for the type who blame Joe Biden for closing schools in 2020 or Barack Obama for 9/11. Slap a statement on the post that the facts are wrong. But shutting down someone’s account? That’s not only unethical, it’s bad political strategy if they find out (and they will) and can play martyr about it. Bad speech is overcome by good speech, not by suppression. 

Curmie does understand that the Twitters and Facebooks of the world have to negotiate a landscape which simultaneously holds them responsible for content posted there and discourages interference. It’s possible that the execs really believe they’re doing us all a service, that if they think someone is lying or making shit up, they should do something. And reducing the spam-and-scam would be really nice, too. But this isn’t the way to do it. 

Anyway, the hearings are happening. If they don’t turn into the demon spawn of a witch-hunt and a poorly-written sitcom, they could be of tremendous value. Chances they’ll turn into the demon spawn of a witch-hunt and a poorly-written sitcom: about 98%.