Media Criticism

To Fight Donald Trump, the Media Contemplates Vast Censorship

"It would help if we could regulate social media," said The View's Sara Haines.

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Donald Trump | CHIP SOMODEVILLA / GDA Photo Service/Newscom
Donald Trump (CHIP SOMODEVILLA / GDA Photo Service/Newscom)

The sheer impressiveness of Donald Trump's Election Day victory continues to grow, with the former president winning not just all of the swing states, but probably the popular vote, the Senate, and possibly even the House of Representatives. Trump also exercises much greater control over his party than he did previously. This is an utter rout for the Democratic Party, and one that will clear the way for the implementation of GOP policy goals on a scale hitherto undreamt of (at least since 2004).

Democratic officials and pundits know that this is bad, though not all of them are willing to admit that the main fault lies with their candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris. If she does not deserve all of the blame, it is only because she shares it with President Joe Biden, whose stubborn decision to seek reelection despite his advanced age and declining cognitive abilities compromised both of their candidacies. Various commentators have lashed out, not at Harris, but at Americans.

MSNBC's Joy Reid, for instance, maintained that Harris's campaign was historic and "flawlessly run" because…Queen Latifah endorsed Harris. Seriously:

Kamala Harris did not fail the American people; the voters failed Kamala Harris. They also failed Queen Latifah, one supposes.

The explanation that Harris lost because the voters are too racist to accept her will always have a certain amount of appeal among the progressive pundit class. Of course, this theory runs into obvious trouble: Harris seemingly lost ground with virtually every demographic, including black and Latino voters. As for the argument that the electorate is biased against woman candidates, there may be some underlying truth to that—but it's important to note that Harris lost even more spectacularly than Hillary Clinton. Either the voters became much more sexist—not entirely persuasive—or there is something else going on.

X Marks the Spot

What is that other thing? The explanation likely to receive star billing from progressives is an increasingly familiar one: social media misinformation. MSNBC host Jen Psaki cited the dangers of disinformation and propaganda on X—the site run by ardent Trump backer, adviser, and billionaire Elon Musk—as a reason to fear Musk's influence over Trump. And earlier in the week, before she knew Harris would lose, Psaki advised Democrats to take action against social media companies in order to "limit the lies that they can spread."

The hosts of The View sounded a similar note on their postelection episode.

"It would help if we could regulate social media," said Sara Haines. "DC and Congress have not been able to do one thing in regard to the rogue corporations of social media."

It's true that outright lies and conspiracy theories flourish on social media, though one can also consume bad information on television, on the radio, in print, in books, and during in-person conversation. Prestigious journalistic institutions make serious errors: For instance, more than four years later, Politico has still not corrected a flagrantly misleading headline, "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say." The laptop is not disinformation, and moreover, the intelligence officials did not claim that it was. (They said it resembled Russian disinformation.)

Critics of the establishment progressive worldview often call attention to the Hunter Biden laptop story because it is both a prominent example of the Democrats, national security experts, and media elites getting something wrong and a prominent example of the concept of disinformation being wielded in bad faith. Civil libertarians are right to fear that the increasingly desperate calls to criminalize false information online—or otherwise punish the platforms for not policing it effectively—will result in the censorship of legitimate speech; the fact-checkers, disinformation watchdog organizations, and government agents have not proven themselves to be particularly adept at identifying actual disinformation.

Calls from cable news pundits for government to do something to regulate social media more aggressively should be recognized as self-serving. Traditional media institutions recognize and resent that social media platforms are a boon to alternative, contrarian, and libertarian perspectives: They allow independent writers, thinkers, and commentators to reach audiences without relying on legacy organizations.

It's important to recognize that heavy-handed regulation of social media—something proposed by many Democrats and Republicans alike—would not merely reduce online misinformation, it would destroy the independent media ecosystem entirely. Provisions like Section 230, which protects social media companies from liability for user-generated content, allow the internet to function the way it does. That's a good thing for the platforms, for free speech, and for contrarian perspectives—and a bad thing for traditional media gatekeepers.

It's also striking that Democrats and media figures do not hesitate to denounce Trump's brazen and authoritarian tendencies, but fail to recognize that threatening, intimidating, and regulating social media companies until they agree to crack down on disfavored speech is itself an authoritarian action.

If Democrats really think they can't beat Trump unless they gut online speech protections, surveil social media companies, and deal a blow to the First Amendment, they should get used to the authoritarian moniker.

 

This Week on Free Media

I'm joined by Emily Jashinsky of Undercurrents and Counter Points to discuss all the latest election news: the media's reaction to Trump's victory, Republican gains with Latinos, whether Musk will influence the Trump administration in a libertarian direction, and Jen Psaki's explanation for Harris's loss.

 

Worth Watching

I finally picked up the latest Zelda game, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. It's great!

EoW is a top-down 2D game that nevertheless incorporates plenty of side-scrolling, with a similar artistic style as the Link's Awakening remake. The graphics are gorgeous—the world of Hyrule, and the characters and creatures who inhabit it, really come alive. Check out these Deku Scrubs (a recurring Zelda race):

The game is drawing praise for being the first Zelda title in which the starring, playable character is actually Princess Zelda rather than Link. But what's really extraordinary about EoW is that it successfully marries the large, open-world concept of the smash hit games Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom with the more linear storyline and traditional structure of beloved past Zelda titles. In other words, this is exactly what I was looking for. Bravo, Nintendo!