Democrat California lawmakers are pushing legislation to create jack-boot agents of government through a “Fake News Advisory Council”—an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’ for the news they don’t like.
After having my Capitol Press Credential revoked in 2015 and only reissued after an Open Records Act request of 10-years of press credential applications, and viable threats of a First Amendment lawsuit, it appears Democrats in the California Legislature still don’t believe in making no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.
Several of the proposed “fake news” bills say, “There is evidence to suggest that the dissemination of ‘fake news’ through social media influenced the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election,” as justification for attempting to create a government control of the media.
The ultimate plan is to expand beyond this unelected “advisory council” to create actual legislation authorizing state government to make this determination.
I know this because the original language in SB 1424 said just that: “This bill seeks to rein in the spread of false information through social media… putting the government in the position of determining what is or is not “false information…”, ...and because I wrote about this in April.
In my article, Dem Sen. Richard Pan New Bill to Force News Sites to Use ‘Fact-Checkers’, I explained: “Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) is the author of the “Online False Information Act,” a new bill that would require anyone who posts any news on the Internet to verify all information through ‘fact-checkers.’ Sen. Pan does not name who these ‘fact checkers’ are, but I’m sure the State of California will create a new unelected body of elite state employees to oversee this.
“Sen. Pan’s bill would ‘require social media Web sites to disclose their ‘strategic plan to mitigate the spread of false information’” (to the California Ministry of Truth?), the first bill analysis explained.
Apparently this sounded just a little too authoritarian for some Democrat committee staffers writing the analyses, so Pan accepted amendments with the understanding that eventually this advisory board would lead to legislation allowing the state to determine what news is fake or not.
Americans are already experiencing censorship on Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. “Censored! How Online Media Companies Are Suppressing Conservative Speech” exposes how these major tech companies work with groups that hate the right—such as the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The State of California Ministry of Truth
Today, as amended, SB 1424 “Would require the Attorney General, not later than April 1, 2019, to establish an advisory committee to study the problem of false information on Internet-based social media platforms and to make recommendations.”
This attempt to push state-authorized news media is not limited to California’s Bolsheviks lawmakers. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill this year that directs schools to create a policy showing how they will implement media literacy instruction in schools. The law also calls for a survey to learn how educators are already teaching news and media literacy.
Sen. Hannah Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), another Orwellian authoritarian, has authored Senate Bill 947 to authorize California’s schools to teach kids how to spot “fake news.” This bill requires the CA Superintendent of Public Instruction, by December 1, 2019, and with yet another unelected advisory committee, to identify best practices and recommendations for instruction in digital citizenship, Internet safety, and media literacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment