'Overrun By Disinformation': Liberal Groups Urge Biden To Crack Down On Free Speech
Multiple left-wing advocacy organizations called on President Joe Biden to create a federal task force to combat "disinformation" on Monday.
"Urgent action is needed to ensure that our democracy does not continue to be overrun by disinformation, be it domestic or foreign in origin," stated a letter obtained by Axios. The letter requested a "Disinformation Defense and Free Expression Task Force" that would be chaired by the Executive Director of the Domestic Policy Council, among other things.
The groups that signed the letter include PEN America, Voto Latino, Common Cause, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Access Now, SimplySecure, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for American Progress and Free Press.
Common Cause is a 501(c)4 organization that has endorsed HR1 — which would nationalize elections and ban voter ID laws — and a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United Supreme Court case. Individuals associated with Common Cause donated more than $35,000 to Democrats during the 2020 election cycle, according to Open Secrets.
Voto Latino endorsed Biden during the 2020 election cycle, describing Trump as "an existential threat to the future of the Latinx community." The group spent $33 million registering Democratic voters in swing states during the 2020 election and recently announced that it would participate in a drive to promote Biden's policies to Latino voters.
The Center for American Progress is a think tank run by long-time Democratic operative Neera Tanden. Biden nominated Tanden to serve as Director of the Office of Management and Budget but withdrew her nomination after tweets in which she trashed Republican senators and Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders surfaced.
While the groups claim that they want to "to combat disinformation while safeguarding freedom of expression," the policies they endorse would necessarily chill free speech. They argue that policies must "blunt the impact of disinformation on Black, Latino, Indigenous, AAPI, rural, and immigrant communities that are deliberately and disproportionately targeted by disinformation" while employing the "investigatory, disclosure, and information collection powers of federal agencies."
Surveys have shown that Democratic voters are more susceptible to misinformation related to COVID-19 and police-involved shootings. A Brookings study found that Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to overemphasize the severity of COVID-19. 41% of Democrats believed that more than half of COVID-19 patients had to be hospitalized, compared to 28% of Republicans. 26% of Republicans in the survey correctly identified that between one and five percent of COVID-19 patients had to be hospitalized, compared to only ten percent of Democrats.
