Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair insists that world leaders should come together define global standards for social media usage and cracking down on what left wingers call “misinformation” and “hate speech.”
Breitbart News reports:
Fresh off the crackdown on so-called “keyboard warriors” over social media posts connected to the recent anti-mass migration riots, leading leftist politicians in Britain are beginning to demand for new speech restrictions on the internet.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose neo-liberal Labour Party government enacted some of the strictest speech laws in modern British history, has joined the chorus of commentators demanding a new crackdown on social media.
In an interview, James Sob asked him, “The question of jurisdiction as well, the server will be in one country, the person writing the message will be in another country, arguably seeing a little of this with the riots recently. But do you foresee a point in the not too distant future where other countries are going to have to follow Brazil's lead and take actual action against platform owners for the dissemination of disinformation?”
Sob refers to the riots that broke in the United Kingdom following the news of a foreigner stabbing and killing three school aged girls, as well as Brazil's recent decision to block X (formerly known as Twitter) in their country after Elon Musk refused to comply with their censorship demands, creating a whopping $9,000 daily fine for Brazilian residents caught trying to access the platform. Readers should note that prominent American politicians like Keith Ellison celebrated the decision.
Blair responds, “Well I certainly see a position where the world's going to have to come together and agree some rules around social media platforms, and I think…quite what the answer is and what the right system of regulation is, I'm not sure, but I'm sure there should be, and there's got to be because it's not just how people can provoke hostility and hatred but I think… the impact on young people particularly when they've got access to mobile phones very young and they are reading a whole lot of stuff and receiving a whole lot of stuff that I think is really messing with their minds in a big way.”
Breitbart News continues:
Blair was not alone in calling for new restrictions on social media. Earlier this week, the left-wing Speaker of the House Sir Lindsay Hoyle also said that the government should consider new limits against online speech.
“Misinformation is dangerous. Social media is good but its also bad when people are using it in a way that could cause a riot, threat, intimidation, suggesting that we should attack somebody, it's not acceptable. What we've got to do is factually correct what's up there, if not I think the government has to think long and hard about what they are going to do about social media and what are they going to put through parliament as a bill.”
She continued, echoing Blair's sentiments favoring a global policy.
“I believe it should be across, it doesn't matter what country you are in, the fact is that misinformation is dangerous and no misinformation, or threats, or intimidation should be allowed to be carred out on social media platforms.”
The Free Speech Union responded to Hoyle's comments. “Concerning to hear the Speaker of the Commons lumping ‘misinformation' in with ‘incitement, threats and intimidation' while talking up the need for greater cross-border censorship. Given that all statements of fact or opinion are provisional, who gets to define ‘misinformation', and when?”
