There's a lot of media shouting about "fake news" by which media types mean...
1. Satire
2. Clickbait sites that just make things up
3. Conservative sites or anyone who disagrees with their alternate reality
The shouting about "Fake News" has mostly been limited to the media, but it's pushing aggressively to turn this into policy. The creepy exchange between the New York Times' Gardiner Harris and Josh Earnest shows just how out of control this has gotten. When a White House spokesman from an administration often guilty of press censorship and intimidation has to explain the First Amendment to a Times reporter, that shows just how illiberal the left has become.
Q I think everyone in this room has gotten threatening emails and threatening things on social media and the rest. Again, the administration specifically went to Silicon Valley, had these meetings to talk about what these companies were doing about their response to threats from abroad. I guess what I'm asking -- I've never heard you talk about what the administration is doing, even not just on a law enforcement basis but a policy basis, reaching out to these Silicon Valley companies. I mean, the President has recently been discussing the problem of fake news on Facebook. Why hasn't there been a concern -- a growing concern on the part of the administration about what seems to be a growing amount of vitriol directed at a variety of people, sometimes violent vitriol, within the United States?
MR. EARNEST: Well, Gardiner, I think over the course -- over the last year or two, you've heard the President I think speak quite bluntly about the rhetoric that was being used in the context of this political campaign, and the impact that that could have on the broader political debate and the climate -- political climate in the country. So I do think this is something that we have talked about, and it's something that the President is concerned that that kind of harsh, sometimes violent, rhetoric obscures legitimate policy debates that we should be having in this country.
So with regard to the role of Silicon Valley and some of these technology companies and the role that they can play in policing the standards for people who use their platform, I know that's something that they've had a broad internal debate about, as well.
Obviously, there are some important First Amendment issues that come into play when we're having this discussion. Those First Amendment issues aren't prioritized in the same way when we're talking about overseas terrorist organizations that don't enjoy the same kinds of protections that American citizens do.
But the same observation that I made about these technology companies with regard to the use by terrorists of these platforms also applies to some of the harsh rhetoric that we've seen. And it's simply this: That many of the entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley didn't develop this technology to make it easier for hate to be propagated online. Their idea was to build a community where people could more effectively communicate and engage in commerce.
So they've got their own built-in interest in protecting the First Amendment rights of their users while also creating a community and a platform that people actually want to use. And yes, if you do administer a platform that is used extensively to propagate hate and to inspire acts of violence, well, I think most people are going to be less likely to use the platform.
So this is the kind of balance that these technology companies are going to have to strike, and it’s something that I know that they’ve been grappling with for some time. In some cases, I know that they’ve been doing it even outside the context of politics.
Q Do you think the market just will have to police itself on that then?
MR. EARNEST: Well, look, I don’t think it necessarily has to be -- I think there is a -- given the First Amendment questions that are raised, the role for the government to play in all of this is going to be necessarily limited by that. But I don’t think it eliminates the possibility that the U.S. government could contribute to a productive, fruitful conversation about the effective administration of these online platforms to ensure that people’s lives aren’t at risk.
Gardiner is pushing for an incredibly disturbing level of intervention, but Earnest also says some rather troubling things including nudging social media companies, more gently, toward censorship.
This isn't a conversation that the government should be having. I remember the hysteria about Ari Fleischer's comments on Bill Maher. Now we've gotten to casual discussions about who should be doing the censoring.