Failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney argued against a proposal by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) Wednesday which would make it illegal for government and social media companies to censor the views of American citizens on the internet. Paul put forth the case that “the First Amendment really isn’t about protecting the speech of government workers the First Amendment says Congress shall make no law it’s about limitations on government involvement with speech.”
Paul continued, “if Twitter says bad things about me and puts up bad things and takes me down I have no recourse against Twitter, same with Facebook. I’m mad, I hate that YouTube has taken my speeches down I don’t do business with them anymore, because I think they’re bigoted, biased and wrong-headed on this.”
“As far as threats, what we do know from the Twitter files is that the government was making threats,” Paul continued, adding “there were threats of Anti-Trust action against the companies if they didn’t take the material down, there was also threats of we will remove your 230 protection. Section 230 gives them liability protection and there were overt threats and threats in writing basically saying if you don’t take this down you know your 230 protection of liability could go away.”
“I think the government should be absolutely prohibited without question. I think it should be as Draconian as you probably can make it,” Paul continued, adding “things that are an opinion, the government has no business in this.”
Romney disagreed with him, claiming that individuals within the government should have the right to stop social media companies or legacy media companies from putting out content that is “wrong”.
Romney stated “To say that no employee of the government from the president on down to that millions of people who work in the government can speak with a social media company or a Legacy Media Company and express their point of view that an article is wrong or that Avenue they’re going down is wrong, that would shut off free speech.”