Watch Live: Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen Testifies | WSJ Frances Haugen, the former Facebook employee who gathered internal documents on the impact of the Instagram app on teenagers' mental health, testifies ...
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Former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen
Frances Haugen, the former Facebook product manager is being unofficially anointed as a "whistleblower" by the New York Times and the Democratic Party. She and they are calling for more censorship of misinformation, i.e. dangerous content, targeting highly disliked figures-aka the "Donald" Trump-repression of dissent et al. The vital question is it lawful! Not only for Facebook and the other big internet platforms, Google, Amazon, Apple. But under the Constitution is it legal for them to exercise censorship?
If one looks at the Constitution the 1st Amendment only protects an individual's speech from government censorship whether it be local, state or federal, including lawmakers, federal officials, public schools, colleges, courts and police officers.
Thus what Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple do regarding censorship is legal under the Constitution.
Yet is there any doubt these platforms need to be regulated? Would it require a new constitutional amendment to put a rein on their censorship decisions?
Don't hold your breath on that idea.
Those behemoths help underwrite the campaigns of most members of Congress so any thought of these "high minded" blowhards doing anything to put a rein on these platforms is only for the naive who still believe in the essential "goodness" of America.
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