Social Media Regulation, Democratic Consensus, First Amendment Challenges
The difficulty of governing modern democracies is attributed to the erosion of shared facts and the influence of unregulated social media. Concerns are raised that the First Amendment acts as a roadblock to government efforts to eliminate disinformation. The 2024 election is framed as a critical test for whether the United States can maintain order while defending free speech against online harassment.
social media· first amendment· democracy· disinformation· free speech
00:04 The dislike of and anguish over social media is just growing and growing and growing. And it's part of our problem, particularly in democracies, in terms of building consensus around any issue. It's really hard to govern today. You can't, you know, there's no, the referees we used to have to determine what's a fact and what isn't a fact, that kind of you know, been eviscerated to a certain degree. The American taxpayers, my constituents that are having a hard time afford their groceries, pay for a car, buy a new home, spend $1.6 quadrillion
00:44 to fix a problem that A, doesn't exist, and as a matter of fact, U, might be exacerbating because it's unknown. It is unknown at this time, the low level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that might actually destroy life. Because plant life all depends, as you know, Secretary, plant life all depends on CO2. And when we kill it, then we're done too. I yield the balance. Congressman, let me just say that I don't agree with what you're saying out there for any number of reasons. I don't have time to go into all of them now, but I'll just tell you point blank that the difference between the periods you're looking at in terms of heat, et cetera, and human input is night and day, number one. Number two, why do you think 195 countries in the world
01:34 They're prime ministers, they're presidents. Because they're grifting like you are, sir. But look, if people go to only one source and the source they go to is sick and has an agenda and they're putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to just hammer it out of existence. So what we need is to is to win the ground, win the right to govern by hopefully winning enough votes that you're free to be able to implement change. Now, obviously there are some people in our country who are prepared to implement change in other ways.
02:17 And that's really dangerous. So you're questioning really if democracy can survive unregulated social media? I think democracies are very challenged right now and have not proven they can move fast enough or big enough to deal with the challenges that we are facing. And to me, that is part of what this race, this election is all about. Will we break the fever in the United States? See, while always ensuring and defending free speech, we must make it clear that it cannot be okay to bully and attack people online.
