[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 106 (Thursday, June 17, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4603-S4604]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Censorship

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, at the end of May, Facebook announced that 
it would no longer censor claims that the coronavirus was man-made. The 
mainstream media, which had savaged the story during the previous 
administration, suddenly started backpedaling, and the Biden White 
House, which had reportedly canceled the previous administration's 
investigation into whether the novel coronavirus originated in a Wuhan 
lab, announced a 90-day inquiry into the virus's origins.
  The occasion for all this backpedaling was apparently a report in the 
Wall Street Journal that three researchers who worked at Wuhan 
Institute of Virology ``sought hospital care'' in late 2019 for 
symptoms consistent with the coronavirus. In the wake of that report, 
it became impossible for the President or the mainstream media or 
Facebook to deny what had always been a plausible theory: that the 
virus came from the virology lab in Wuhan.
  Journalists moved to explain their previous rejection of this theory, 
and some of them openly admitted what had been obvious: that they 
rejected the theory not because of flaws in the theory itself but 
because of those who had advanced this hypothesis.
  We don't know what these revived investigations will ultimately show, 
but the Wuhan reversal illustrates multiple issues. One, of course, is 
the need to remember that our social media experience is heavily 
curated. The posts and ads we see are selected for us by complex 
algorithms that analyze the data social media companies have collected 
on each of us and curate our experience accordingly.
  On top of that, as the past year or two has illustrated, social media 
companies actively censor certain material, meaning that there are 
posts we will never see.
  As chairman and now ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee's 
Communications and Tech Subcommittee, I have pushed for transparency 
requirements for social media companies, and I have introduced two 
bipartisan bills that would increase internet transparency while 
preserving the light-touch approach to regulation that has allowed the 
internet to flourish.
  My Filter Bubble Transparency Act would allow social media users to 
opt out of the filter bubble--in other words, to opt out of the 
filtered experience tailored for them by opaque algorithms--and instead 
see an unfiltered social media feed or search results.
  The Platform Accountability and Transparency Act, which I introduced 
with Senator Schatz, would increase transparency and accountability 
around content moderation. Sites would be required to provide an easily 
digestible disclosure of their content moderation practices for users, 
and, importantly, they would be required to explain their decisions to 
remove material to consumers.
  Under the PACT Act, if a site chose to remove your post, it would 
have to tell you why it decided to remove your post. The PACT Act would 
also require sites to have an appeals process. So if Facebook, for 
example, removed one of your posts, it would not only have to tell you 
why, but it would have to provide a way for you to appeal that 
decision.
  Let me be clear. Private entities are free to have their own opinions 
and viewpoints and should not be compelled by the government to publish 
alternative views, but that is not what we are talking about with these 
large social media platforms. Most strongly deny that they are 
publishers and instead hold themselves forth as neutral platforms for 
the free exchange of ideas from all corners. That is the promise they 
make to consumers.
  The Wuhan reversal is more than a reminder that our social media 
experience is actually a heavily curated one. It also raises serious 
questions about censorship and the maintenance of the marketplace of 
ideas that is a hallmark of a free society. There is no free society 
without the free exchange of ideas. Freedom of speech, freedom of the 
press, freedom of religion, freedom to speak in the public square--all 
of these are essential elements of a free society. The more a 
government or other entities crack down on freedom of speech and the 
free exchange of ideas, the more we move away from a free society and 
toward tyranny.
  I say ``or other entities'' because the responsibility for protecting 
the free exchange of ideas extends beyond the government. Government, 
of course, has an absolute obligation to defend our fundamental 
freedoms, but other institutions in society also have a role. You can't 
have a free society without free institutions. I am thinking here 
particularly of the press, universities, and in this day and age, 
social media companies.
  If the press or social media companies only sanction one narrative--
the narrative preferred by the government or by social elites or by any 
other group--the marketplace of ideas shrinks substantially. If 
multiple groups that should be fostering the free exchange of ideas 
combine to limit or advance a particular narrative, they start to 
control public opinion instead of allowing individuals to form their 
own opinions based on a free flow of information.
  Unfortunately, as the Wuhan story illustrates, today we are seeing a 
real movement to restrict the free flow of ideas. Whether we are 
talking about speech codes or social media censorship, more and more, 
we are seeing a preferred narrative being advanced and opinions outside 
of that preferred narrative being censored or marginalized.
  We see it in government with bills like S. 1, which would, among 
other things, allow the IRS to consider an organization's views before 
deciding whether or not to grant it tax-exempt status, or the Equality 
Act, which would crack down on freedom of speech and freedom of 
religion in unprecedented ways. We see it outside government when media 
outlets engage in selective reporting to highlight an accepted 
narrative instead of reporting the news and the facts, whatever they 
are, or when social media censors legitimate theories or stories or 
when universities crack down on free speech.
  In the wake of the Wuhan lab story, we saw widespread censorship 
across government, social media, and the press for political reasons. 
President Biden seemingly shut down the former President's 
investigation into the virus's origin because it was the former 
President's investigation. Democrats in Congress pressured social media 
companies to censor information that contradicted the narrative that 
they

[[Page S4604]]

were embracing. The mainstream media savaged the lab origin story. 
Social media sites censored it. And all of this happened because of the 
political affiliation of the people advancing this reasonable 
hypothesis.
  You can only have a marketplace of ideas if ideas actually get out 
there, which is why censorship, as I have said, is antithetical to a 
free society. It is also important to note--and this is a critical, 
critical point--that having a free marketplace of ideas means allowing 
some ideas that might be wrong, that might seem offensive, that might 
seem silly. We are not talking about content that, for example, 
promotes violence but ideas that are provocative, debatable, or out of 
the mainstream. The alternative is allowing the government or some 
other entity to decide what information we see and what we believe.
  It is important to remember that sometimes ideas that seem silly or 
wrong initially turn out to be right. More than one widely accepted 
scientific theory started out as a fringe position. A prevailing 
opinion may turn out to be wrong, and political or social power doesn't 
necessarily equal truth.
  I hope that their abrupt reversal on COVID's possible origins makes 
media organizations and social media platforms think twice the next 
time they consider censoring a story. I hope it reminds them of the 
dangers of restricting the free flow of ideas and of their obligation 
to separate their politics from their jobs
  In a speech he delivered in 1967, Ronald Reagan, marveling at our 
government by the people, said this:

       Perhaps you and I have lived too long with this miracle to 
     properly be appreciative. Freedom is a fragile thing, and 
     it's never more than one generation away from extinction. It 
     is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and 
     defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only 
     once to a people.

  I fear that long acquaintance with the blessings of liberty--with the 
blessings of a free press and freedom of speech and freedom of 
religion--has sometimes made us careless about the preservation of 
these freedoms. We are used to them, and we assume that they will 
always be with us. But, as Ronald Reagan pointed out, freedom has to be 
actively safeguarded, or it will be lost.
  I have seen too many instances lately where our cherished First 
Amendment freedoms are subordinated to a political and social agenda, 
and I hope, I hope that the Wuhan story reminds us of the 
responsibility that each one of us has to safeguard these freedoms, 
lest they slip away from us.