Despite conservatives believing that Facebook censored information about COVID-19 (which was actually dangerous disinformation), Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that while they were “pressured” by the Biden administration to remove disinformation, he never suggests that they actually did so. Anecdotally, I can attest that as a Facebook user, disinformation about COVID was rampant.

In June 2024, the Supreme Court threw out a lawsuit that would have restricted the government communicating with internet giants over what it saw a “misinformation”, because the majority opinion (written by Amy Coney Barrett) found that the two Republican-led states and social media users who filed the lawsuit against dozens of executive branch officials and agencies did not have legal right to do so, because they could not prove that government pressure had suppressed their free-speech rights.

Furthermore, if corporations are effectively people with regard to rights, social media companies are privately owned and allowed to platform (or not platform) whatever they want. In fact, most have a long history of not platforming hate speech. Not all speech qualifies as “free”, and it can be argued that harmful disinformation that could get people killed is NOT protected.

“For example, former president Trump filed a class action lawsuit against Twitter and the United States, alleging that the government coerced Twitter into suppressing speech in violation of the First Amendment; the complaint was dismissed on the grounds that Twitter was a private actor.” [Source]

This is particularly hypocritical, since Twitter kept an entire DATABASE of requests to censor content that came from Republicans.

“When the White House called up Twitter in the early morning hours of September 9, 2019, officials had what they believed was a serious issue to report: Famous model Chrissy Teigen had just called President Donald Trump “a pussy ass bitch” on Twitter — and the White House wanted the tweet to come down.”

So what are we holding Big Tech accountable FOR, in this case? Gilman doesn’t say.

Full contextual analysis of Section 4.1: Department of Commerce here.