Earlier this week, the White House effectively endorsed censorship when White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki encouraged Spotify to censor Joe Rogan.
“Last week, the Surgeon General also was asked on MSNBC about Joe Rogan’s vaccine comments on Spotify. And he said that tech companies have an ‘important role to play’ in stopping misinformation because he — they are the ‘predominant places’ where misinformation spreads,” a reporter told Psaki. “Spotify is putting out advisory warnings on episodes that have to do with COVID-19. Does the White House and the administration think this is a satisfactory step?”
Psaki told the reporter that “more could be done” to go after “misinformation.”
“This disclaimer is a positive step,” she said. “But, we want every platform to continue doing more to call out mis- and disinformation while also uplifting accurate information.”
“Look at the facts, right?” she continued. “You are 16 times more likely to be hospitalized if you’re unvaccinated and 68 times more likely to die than someone who is boosted if you’re unvaccinated. That’s pretty significant. And we think that is something that unquestionably should be the basis of how people are communicating about it.”
“Our view is it’s a good step,” Psaki concluded. “It’s a positive step, but there’s more that can be done.”
Psaki encourages platforms like Spotify to censor their content. pic.twitter.com/odaxP7hqmn
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) February 1, 2022
Is this something the government should be getting involved in? The First Amendment clearly says no. Further, if the White House wants to clamp down on misinformation, they should look internally at the propaganda they push, such as bogus graphs claiming that Biden’s economy is so great or cheering the decline of the price of gas by a few cents. Or how about the fact that private companies have censored many things for allegedly being misinformation, such as the lab leak theory (which Facebook reversed), the negative impacts of the lockdowns (which studies show are true), or posts about alternative COVID treatments like ivermectin, which has saved lives.
“Instead of going after Rogan who is not a doctor, why not POTUS, Psaki, and Spotify invite me for a review of the data so they can fully see and understand all the peer-reviewed ad preprint data they are trying to censor?” asks Dr. Peter McCullough, MD MPH, a COVID expert who has appeared on Rogan’s show, on Twitter. “How can they know what to censor if they don’t review it?”
Because they don’t care.
