[finnbow]

DHS eventually scrapped the Disinformation Governance Board in August. While free speech advocates cheered the dissolution of the board, other government efforts to root out disinformation have not only continued but expanded to encompass additional DHS sub-agencies like Customs and Border Protection, which “determines whether information about the component spread through social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter is accurate.”

Monitoring social media to see what kind of dangerous and deadly lies conservatives are telling the American public about government is completely kosher. How else do you set the record straight when conservatives are spewing lies and propaganda that ends up killing people (through COVID or white nationalist violence, for example) or planning an insurrection? You do realize that Congressional Republicans criticized the government for not adequately monitoring social media before Jan. 6 to better protect the Capitol, eh?

The only reason that conservatives constantly whine about Big Tech "censoring" them is because their political messaging relies so heavily on lies and misinformation and their infotainment complex cashes in on it big time. What would today's GOP and Fox News be like if they were actually truthful rather than an endless font of agitprop? One thing's for sure - we would have hundreds of thousands fewer COVID deaths, no insurrection on Jan. 6 and no election deniers running for office.

The government's primary job is to protect Americans. It's quite unfortunate that the biggest threat it faces is one of our two political parties. Monitoring their dangerous (and publicly available) social media is not remotely akin to censorship. Indeed, it would be a dereliction of their duty to do otherwise. The only thing interesting thing about this story is that conservatives feel so threatened when their life-blood, lies and misinformation, are subject to fact-checking or otherwise monitored to protect the American people from the (predictable) impact of those lies.