Politics

Free Speech May Be In The Crosshairs Under A Harris-Walz Administration

A Kamala Harris presidency could be a disaster for free speech rights, civil liberties advocates told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

As vice president, a senator and California’s attorney general, Harris backed policies that imposed restrictions on speech, including by defending a law eventually struck down by the Supreme Court, which forced pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise abortions. On the campaign trail, Harris has indicated support for holding social media platforms “accountable” for “hate speech” and misinformation online.

New Civil Liberties Alliance litigation counsel Jenin Younes told the DCNF she is “extremely concerned about both Harris and Walz’s records on free speech.”

“Both have evinced either a disregard for or misunderstanding of the First Amendment, which protects ‘misinformation’ and ‘hate speech’— contrary to various statements the two have made,” Younes said. “The First Amendment recognizes that the government does not have a monopoly on the truth, as it has demonstrated throughout the COVID era during which it was one of the worst purveyors of misinformation in the country.”

During a 2019 campaign speech before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Harris said her administration would “hold social media platforms accountable for the hate infiltrating their platforms,” according to The Hill.

“If you profit off of hate, if you act as a megaphone for misinformation or cyber warfare, if you don’t police your platforms, we are going to hold you accountable,” she said.

Harris also requested former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey suspend Trump’s account in October 2019, while Trump was still in the White House.

“No user, regardless of their job, wealth, or stature should be exempt from abiding by Twitter’s user agreement, not even the President of the United States,” Harris wrote in a letter.

As California attorney general, Harris targeted pro-life journalist David Daleiden, who went undercover to expose Planned Parenthood’s involvement in fetal tissue trafficking, initiating an investigation into Daleiden and a raid on his apartment. She also supported and defended a law, which was ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court, that required pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise abortions.

Daleiden previously told the DCNF that Harris “as a public official is incredibly dangerous for First Amendment rights and civil liberties in this country.”

As a senator, Harris introduced the Do No Harm Act, which would prevent religious freedom protections from applying “in cases involving discrimination.”

Harris said the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom to worship should “never be used to undermine other Americans’ civil rights or subject them to discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”

The law was first introduced in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, where the majority held that corporations could not be forced under the Affordable Care Act to provide employee health care plans that cover contraception against their religious beliefs.

Harris’ pick for vice president, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, said on MSNBC in 2022 that there’s “no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech.”

“The First Amendment makes no general exception for misinformation or hate speech,” Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), told the DCNF. “Allowing the government to police public discourse under the guise of rooting out false or hateful speech would open the door to politically motivated censorship, as we’ve seen in countries with weak speech protections.”

Terr told the DCNF that “both major presidential candidates have called for restricting constitutionally protected speech.” Terr noted Harris promised to hold social media platforms “accountable” for “hate speech” and misinformation, while former President Donald Trump recently expressed support for criminalizing flag burning.

“Under both the Trump and Biden administrations, the federal government repeatedly pressured social media platforms behind the scenes to remove purported misinformation,” he said. “That led to widespread criticism and a lawsuit that went all the way up to the Supreme Court. Hopefully, whoever takes the Oval Office next January will recognize that the federal government can’t force private platforms to do their censorship bidding.”

Tim Walz: “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech and especially around our democracy” pic.twitter.com/4pNBwb8Su7

— Matt Wolking (@MattWolking) August 7, 2024

During the 2020 election, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) engaged in “switchboarding,” where the agency sent “misinformation” flagged by local election officials to social media companies for removal.

Twitter granted requests to review content in 2020 from both the Trump White House and President Joe Biden’s campaign, according to journalist Matt Taibbi.

Under the Biden-Harris administration, government agencies engaged in wide-ranging efforts to restrict speech online, asking platforms to suppress content on issues including COVID-19 and elections.

In 2021, the Biden White House increased pressure on platforms, sending explicit requests to take down posts and demanding answers when they weren’t promptly resolved, court documents revealed. White House staffers pressured Facebook to censor individuals like Tucker Carlson and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. over vaccine-related content.

Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a July 15, 2021, briefing that they were “in regular touch” with platforms through senior staff and members of the COVID-19 team. “We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation,” she said.

In April 2022, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the short-lived “Disinformation Governance Board,” which was paused just weeks afterwards and officially terminated months later following heavy criticism surrounding potential infringements on free speech.

The Supreme Court held in June that the plaintiffs who challenged government requests for social media platforms to censor speech did have standing. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the majority opinion that they had failed to “link their past social-media restrictions to the defendants’ communications with the platforms.”

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley wrote in a column Saturday that Democrats “have arguably the most anti-free speech ticket of a major party in more than two centuries.”

He noted that Harris has “long supported” the anti-free speech policies that Biden made “a central part of his legacy.”

The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Featured image credit. (Screen Capture/CSPAN)