White House petition calls on Trump to press Congress for legislation stopping social media censorship

The internet is the modern public square. It is where political campaigns are fought and won, where journalism is created and distributed, and where grassroots movements are born. Yet, the free and open internet has become a controlled, censored space, monopolized by a few unaccountable corporations.

By banning users from their platforms, those corporations can effectively remove politically unwelcome Americans from the public square. That is repugnant to our shared values of free speech and freedom of the press.

“The President should request that Congress pass legislation prohibiting social media platforms from banning users for First Amendment-protected speech. The power to block lawful content should be in the hands of individual users – not Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey,” the petition says in conclusion.

As we and others have reported, social media sites have engaged in what appears by many to be a systematic and even deliberate effort to silence any speech considered to be non-politically correct using the guise of either “hate speech” or “fake news.”

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As a result of the ongoing and now-blatant censorship, which ranges from user accounts being disabled for no good reason to pages being torn down and bogus blocks, such as this one we reported on earlier Tuesday, activist Chris Sevier drafted a proposed measure that if passed into law, would see social media sites fined up to $75,000 and possibly sanctioned even further depending on the court.

Additionally, a new website gives users the opportunity to share their social media horror stories.

The petition, which can be seen here, needs just under 97,000 signatures as of this writing to get a response from the White House.

Related:

• Opinion: Silicon Valley tech giants like Facebook, Google now a direct threat to U.S. freedom, democracy
• Administrator of conservative Facebook page ‘temporarily blocked’ for allegedly scheduling posts too fast
• New website lets users document Facebook censorship, abuse
• Analysis: Why Legislation is Needed to Stop Big Social Media Censorship
• South Carolina GOP Rep to introduce measure to stop social media censorship

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