Adam Schiff Attempts Censorship by Proxy, ‘Demanding Action’ To Suppress ‘Hate Speech’ on Twitter – By Jacob Sullum (Reason) / Dec 9, 2022
Instead of debating whether the platform has been flooded by bigotry, Elon Musk should tell the congressman to mind his own business.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D–Calif.) yesterday said he is “demanding action” in response to an “unacceptable” rise in bigoted slurs on Twitter since Elon Musk took over the platform in late October. Musk responded by taking issue with the evidence that Schiff cited, saying “hate speech impressions are actually down by 1/3 for Twitter now vs prior to acquisition.” What he should have said is that government officials in a free society have no business demanding the suppression of speech they do not like.
“We are deeply concerned about the recent rise in hate speech on Twitter,” Schiff and Rep. Mark Takano (D–Calif.) write in a letter to Musk. “Analysis by independent researchers indicates Twitter has become an increasingly toxic place for our constituents, and we are reaching out to you to understand the actions Twitter is taking to combat this increase in harmful content.”
Schiff and Takano ostensibly are just asking questions and urging Musk to step up enforcement of Twitter’s ban on “hateful conduct.” But they are doing that in their official capacity as members of Congress, a job that gives them no authority to police speech or insist that anyone else do so. To the contrary, the First Amendment explicitly bars Congress from “abridging the freedom of speech.” By publicly pressuring Musk to censor “hate speech,” which is indisputably covered by the First Amendment, Schiff and Takano are trying to indirectly accomplish something that the Constitution forbids.
