Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon went to Capitol Hill today to talk about free speech.
Here were his opening remarks:
A few notes:
Seth responded to some of the most common arguments in favor of Big Tech censorship and dismantled them with ease.
If these platforms are the modern public square as the Supreme Court has described them, then free speech should be protected there. Even if they presently are not. The current state of affairs being what they are is not a good argument for failing to take action to improve them.
Then he took on the argument that censorship is a protected form of free speech for these platforms and explains what many old-school conservatives don't understand about the "private company" argument.
They say these platforms have a First Amendment right to censor, as if censorship was a form of protected speech. But it isn't. Censorship is a form of conduct. The state has always been able to regulate conduct. The idea that censorship is speech was firmly rejected... the Court mocked the idea that buried somewhere in the enumerated right to free speech lies a corporation's unenumerated right to muzzle speech. No such right exists.
It shouldn't be up to free speech billionaires like Elon Musk to protect the rights of Americans. That's the one legitimate role of government.
