D.C. Memo: FCC's Carr Dings Hillary Clinton, John Kerry as Foes of Free Speech
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FCC: FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said Monday that the political left has become a foe of free speech. The Republican regulator pointed to Democratic Party leaders Hillary Clinton and John Kerry as two who have flip flopped on free speech issues based on their recent comments calling for restrictions – including criminal charges in Clinton's view – on people who spread misinformation on social media platforms. "Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had some remarks over the weekend that were reported about suggesting wanting more government control over online speech. John Kerry recently had very similar remarks, I thought," Carr said on a webcast hosted by the Federalist Society and moderated by Free State Foundation President Randolph May. Carr said the left's call for a speech crackdown – which he said is happening not just in the U.S. but in countries like Brazil – was new. "I think it's a 180 for a lot of these same officials that were previously extolling the virtues of free speech on the Internet – how it's key to a healthy democracy," Carr said. "Now I see a lot of rhetoric - from my own view I think coming more from the left – about free speech being a threat to democracy."
On Sept. 17, Clinton went on MSNBC and said, "I also think there are Americans who are engaged in this kind of propaganda and whether they should be civilly or even in some cases criminally charged is something that would be a better deterrence because the Russians are unlikely except in a very few cases to ever stand trial in the United States ..." A fact checker said Clinton was referring to Americans who took money from Russian sources to spread misinformation. At a Sept. 25 appearance at the World Economic Forum, Kerry expressed frustration with speech freedoms protected by the First Amendment. "You know there's a lot of discussion now about how you curb those entities in order to guarantee that you're going to have some accountability on facts, etc. But look, if people only go to one source, and the source they go to is sick, and, you know, has an agenda, and they're putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence," Kerry said.