DeSantis Crushes Completely False Media Narrative Over Blogger Bill

NBC News tweeted out a story reporting on the bill and plastered DeSantis’ face on it, falsely intimating he was behind Republican State Senator Jason Brodeur’s proposal. The state legislature never even took up the legislation. It would have required “any blogger writing about government officials to register with the Florida Office of Legislative Services or the Commission on Ethics.”

The media attempted to spin DeSantis once again as an authoritarian fascist dictator who wants to clamp down on individual rights. Nothing could be further from the truth and the insinuation by the media is libelous. Numerous media outlets tied the bill to DeSantis.

Trevor Timm at The Guardian wrote an op-ed on the bill and headlined it, “Ron DeSantis has his next target in his sights: freedom of the press.” He then wrote, “Florida’s rightwing governor and legislature want to gut one of the United States’ most important first amendment rulings.”

Vanity Fair correspondent Bess Levin wrote a piece on Tuesday, referring to the bill as “Florida’s DeSantis Blogger Bill” while suggesting that the governor supported the legislation.

A Republican state senator in Florida has introduced a bill that, if passed, would require bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, his cabinet or state legislators to register with the state. https://t.co/gKiLruCif8

— NBC News (@NBCNews) March 3, 2023

“While Florida governor Ron DeSantis does not appear to have commented on the bill, he presumably supports it given his desire to crack down on the free press,” Levin charged.

MSNBC really pushed the false narrative… hard.

MSNBC’s @BeschlossDC: “[@GovRonDeSantis] really has tried to turn him self into sort of a local Mussolini in Fla. What w/ the book banning, the brutal tactics, & … the suggestion that bloggers have to register w/ the state … This is fascism & authoritarianism” pic.twitter.com/Wz8fem6Bf9

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 5, 2023

MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan commented on “Deadline: White House” according to Fox News, “And the Desantises and Trumps are borrowing and inspiring from others abroad. And you look at the plan to register bloggers it is straight out of the Kremlin. The Russian government has done similar things.”

MSNBC Host Ari Melber also compared DeSantis to Vladimir Putin while claiming the blogger bill was, “part of the larger DeSantis crusade against free speech and the press.”

“Do you ever feel like we’re watching a movie? The guy has the word ‘truth’ emblazed behind him while he tries to literally get the media to be registered and regulated and accountable to him. There is other separate censorship laws critics also say this, really in a very literal way, echoed Vladimir Putin’s 2014 blogger law that forced those Russian bloggers to, wait for it, register with the government,” Melber stated.

MSNBC’s Joy Reid viciously commented, “The latest salvo from Florida governor Ron DeSantis and his war on all things woke looks to fulfill one long-time right-wing fantasy, stripping away press freedoms with repercussions that would extend far beyond Florida to a pair of new bills. One would require bloggers who write about elected officials to register with the state like lobbyists and disclose payments or be subject to fines. And another, H.B. 991, would make it easier to sue for defamation, lowering the bar for suing not just for journalists but anyone potentially making supposedly defamatory statements including over social media. Ron DeSantis has made no effort to hide his true intentions.”