Free speech is under attack across the globe — and the United States is the next front in the battle.
On Monday, Brazil’s Supreme Court upheld a judge’s ruling that shut down X for refusing to obey government censorship demands.
The decision came days after France arrested Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, and Hong Kong convicted two journalists of sedition for publishing material critical of the government.
And in November, American voters must decide if they want the government to limit what they can hear and read, censor the scientific information they can receive and restrict the political views they’re exposed to — because all that is part of how Kamala Harris defines “freedom.”
Democrats are claiming that they’re the party of freedom, but Harris’ track record shows she’s the enemy of our most fundamental liberty: free speech.
She has long sought to use government power to muzzle those who disagree with her.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s letter to the House Judiciary Committee last week should frighten every American who values free expression.
Better late than never, Zuckerberg called it “wrong” that the Harris-Biden administration strong-armed Facebook to take down posts indicating masks don’t work and COVID vaccines might produce side effects.
Zuckerberg said, “I regret we were not more outspoken about it.”
Zuckerberg’s letter confirms evidence already presented to the US Supreme Court, as well as in congressional testimony, that the Harris-Biden administration repeatedly pressured social media companies to censor — getting them to do the dirty work the First Amendment prohibits government from doing directly.
Three days after Zuckerberg’s letter made headlines, CNN’s Dana Bash interviewed Harris — and never asked about her role in censoring social media.
That’s journalistic malpractice.
Harris did tell Bash that “my values haven’t changed.”
That’s for sure.
Harris chose as her deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty, formerly the White House director of digital strategy — the person who called the shots about what got censored under President Biden.
Flaherty was cited in federal court filings as meeting and corresponding with officials at Facebook, Twitter and other online platforms, demanding they act aggressively against posts spreading COVID-19 “misinformation.”
Promoting Flaherty is a red flag that a Harris-Walz administration aims to snuff out your core freedoms.
X owner Elon Musk isn’t mincing words about the threat Harris poses to free speech.
“The attacks this year on free speech are unprecedented in the 21st century,” Musk posted Friday.
“It will happen in America too if Kamala/Walz gain power.”
His warning came shortly after Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes blocked X within his country, imposing steep fines on anyone there who tries to use the platform.
The judge’s rationale will sound frighteningly familiar: He suspended X, he wrote, to protect democracy.
In 2022, de Moraes was given sweeping powers to restrict and remove “disinformation” about the outcome of Brazil’s highly contested presidential election.
Musk had repeatedly flouted Moraes’ censorship commands.
The judge’s justification for shutting down X in Brazil mirrors Harris’ efforts to censor political opponents here.
In 2019, as California’s attorney general, Harris lobbied then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to ban President Donald Trump from the platform.
“How is that not a violation of free speech?” CNN’s Jake Tapper asked her, adding that such a move would result in “a slippery slope where they have to ban — you know, half the people on Twitter.”
In reply, Harris doubled down, insisting that free online expression is a “privilege” and that censorship is necessary to defend “our democracy” from those who spread misinformation.
That’s the vernacular of tyrants.
And what about Harris’ deeds?
As California AG in 2016, she tried to enforce a state law compelling pregnancy centers run by religious organizations to give their clients information offering state-funded abortions — in short, compelling these centers to advertise that which violated their beliefs.
The law, which Harris defended in federal court, was ultimately defeated when the US Supreme Court ruled against it.
In another unsuccessful end-run around the First Amendment, AG Harris tried to compel conservative nonprofits in California to release their donors’ names, an effort the Supreme Court ruled was an unconstitutional intimidation of donors that violated their First Amendment rights.
Even the usually ultra-liberal American Civil Liberties Union opposed Harris’ demand.
Harris has been an enemy of the First Amendment throughout her career.
On August 18, as he suspended his campaign, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. discussed his “alarm” at Harris’ and Biden’s “resort to censorship, media control, and weaponization of the federal agencies“ — an ongoing assault that he called “an attack on our most sacred right of free expression.”
Zuckerberg, Musk and Kennedy — unlikely bedfellows, to be sure.
But all recognize the same danger.
Trump pledges to end government censorship. Harris is promising a $6,000 handout to new parents to “buy a car seat . . . baby clothes, a crib.”
Americans, don’t sell out your children’s freedom.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York.
