OPINION:
Sen. Rand Paul penned an opinion piece for the New York Post calling for lawsuits against YouTube and Google for hosting a video that falsely accused him of taking money from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and for then refusing to intervene and remove the video when, as he put it, “paid trolls” spread the “ludicrous accusation” far and wide.
Suing social media? This is a 180-degree flip for Paul, who has long held that private companies aren’t subject to the same First Amendment anti-censorship scrutiny as the public sector. And on that — he’s right. Privately operated, privately owned, privately held companies are part of the private sector, and the First Amendment only speaks of limits on government to control or restrict speech. In that regard, private companies can indeed censor — if it can even be called censoring. But in truth, they can pick and choose what words to publish, what videos to broadcast, what audio clips to play, what images to post and so on.
And the First Amendment protects these private companies, owned and operated as they are by private citizens, to choose.
Then came Big Tech.
Then came Twitter and Facebook and Google.
Then came President Trump and MAGA and COVID.
And America saw up close and personal what happens when political activists and leftist hacks masquerading as social media free speech mavens decide to use their substantial platforms to mute the voices of those they deem distasteful — and curiosity of all curiosities, all the ones they deem distasteful happened to be conservatives and Christians and MAGAs and Constitution-loving patriots and, under COVID, all those who tried to discuss any narrative that countered Big Pharma and Big Government.
That’s when conservatives were put in the odd position of arguing for government controls on social media — for government-imposed regulations on private companies. It was a lose-lose for the ideological right; a sly and wicked win-win for the left.
Through it all, Paul, and a handful of like-minded others, pretty much held fast to the principled and constitutionally sound idea that social media, sad as it seemed for free speech advocates, was privately owned and was therefore allowed to pick and choose its posts. It was a tightrope walk, yes. But freedom isn’t always convenient or comfortable, or even clear-cut, for that matter.
Enough is enough, Paul now says.
“‘I’ve Changed My Mind’ — Rand Paul,” The Daily Caller wrote in a headline about Paul’s op-ed in the New York Post.
“Rand Paul: I’ve changed my mind — Google and YouTube can’t be trusted to do the right thing and must be reined in,” the Post put as Paul’s headline, above his opinion piece.
After detailing the false video that’s made the social media rounds, resulting in death threats to him, Paul wrote, “Advocating for liability for Google is no small step for me. I have long defended the private property rights of Internet companies and long defended them against overzealous, partisan abuses of antitrust law, even when I was angry with YouTube for its policies that silenced my attempts to educate the public on the potentially deadly consequences of relying on cloth masks to prevent transmission of COVID-19. But I will not sit idly by and let them hoist a provably false defamatory video, which is now part of a widespread harassment campaign. I am now receiving death threats. The arrogance of Google to continue hosting this defamatory video and the resultant threats on my life have caused me to rethink Congress’ blind allegiance to liability shields.”
Section 230 of the Communications Act has shielded social media companies from lawsuits for posts by third parties.
“I always believe this protection is necessary for the functioning of the Internet,” Paul wrote.
But Google — YouTube — all the social media sites — have abused Section 230; they have removed some posts but not others; they have allowed even harmful posts to stay, except when the harm is to one of their sacred cows.
That’s not freedom.
That’s exploitation of freedom.
“Social media companies claim they are proudly and unselfishly protecting speech,” Paul wrote.
But rather, they pick and choose which speech to protect — and which not.
“And still, despite obvious left-wing biased censorship, I defended Google and Facebook’s private property rights to moderate their platforms as they saw fit,” Paul wrote.
And then this: “But the straw that broke the camel’s back came this week when I notified Google executives that they were hosting a video of a woman posing as a newscaster posing in a fake news studio explaining that ‘Rand Paul is taking money from the Maduro regime.’ I’ve formally notified Google that this video is [false] … Google … refused to take down the video.”
Paul said he’s now in the camp of believers who say social media companies need to face consequences for their failures to act in the face of defamatory and damaging posts.
They should lose their liability shields, he said.
This is quite a turnaround for Paul. And his is a voice that will echo powerfully around the free speech circles.
In the end, it all comes down to the morals of the people.
Just as framers warned that the newly formed republic could only last so long as its people were moral and virtuous — because only the moral and virtuous are capable of self-governance — so goes the free market. If America’s business leaders aren’t moral and virtuous, respectful of the rights of all citizens to exercise their constitutional and God-given rights and liberties equally, then the natural path is for the free market to crumble in chaos, until such time as another party is called upon to instill order.
All too often, that other party is government.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.
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