{"id":80363,"date":"2022-04-24T05:08:30","date_gmt":"2022-04-24T10:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=80363"},"modified":"2022-04-24T05:08:30","modified_gmt":"2022-04-24T10:08:30","slug":"80363","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=80363","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Obama Calls for Internet Speech Regulation<\/a><\/p>\n

In a\u00a0speech<\/a>\u00a0delivered at Stanford University, President Barack Obama called for more censorship of social media speech. He argued that without regulation, social media will have \u201cfrightening implications.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are dying because of misinformation,\u201d Obama said.<\/p>\n

Obama continued to say that the \u201cprofound change that\u2019s taken place and how we communicate and consume information,\u201d is one of the greatest threats to democracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSocial media platforms aren\u2019t just our window into the internet. They serve as our primary source of news and information. No one tells us that the window is blurred, subject to unseen distortions and subtle manipulations,\u201d the former president noted.<\/p>\n

Obama said that social media companies need to be regulated, including being held responsible for content posted by users.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we do nothing, I am convinced that the trends we are seeing will get worse,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout some standards, the implications of this technology for our elections, for our legal system, for our democracy, for rules of evidence, for our entire social order, are frightening and profound.<\/p>\n

\u201cTech platforms need to accept that they play a unique role in how we as a people and people around the world are consuming information, and that their decisions have an impact on every aspect of society. With that power comes accountability and in democracies, like ours, at least, the need for some democratic oversight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obama singled out former Trump advisor Steve Bannon and Russia\u2019s President Vladamir Putin as people who have leveraged misinformation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAutocrats like Putin have used these platforms as a strategic weapon against democratic countries that they consider a threat,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople like Putin and Steve Bannon, for that matter, understand it\u2019s not necessary for people to believe this information in order to weaken democratic institutions. You just have to flood a country\u2019s public square with enough raw sewage. Is that to raise enough questions spread enough dirt? Plant enough conspiracy theorizing that citizens no longer know what to believe?\u201d<\/p>\n

Obama said he was not surprised to learn that Putin was accused of trying to influence the 2016 presidential election through social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does still nag me though was my failure to fully appreciate at the time just how susceptible we had become to lies and conspiracy theories \u2013 despite having spent years being a target of disinformation myself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPutin didn\u2019t do that. He didn\u2019t have to. We did it to ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Obama Calls for Internet Speech Regulation In a\u00a0speech\u00a0delivered at Stanford University, President Barack Obama called for more censorship of social media speech. He argued that without regulation, social media will have \u201cfrightening implications.\u201d \u201cPeople are dying because of misinformation,\u201d Obama said. Obama continued to say that the \u201cprofound change that\u2019s taken place and how we … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scratch-a-lib-find-a-tyrant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80364,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80363\/revisions\/80364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}