> Sen. Amy Klobuchar introduced a bill Thursday that would strip online platforms such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. of liability protections if their techn

> Sen. Amy Klobuchar introduced a bill Thursday that would strip online platforms such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. of liability protections if their technology spreads misinformation about coronavirus vaccines or other public-health emergencies. I am a little worried about the scope of such an exception. These days "emergencies" are declared for virtually any worthwhile political issue. Such declarations are used to manage public opinion, to exercise special emergency powers (bypassing legislative processes like executive orders do), and more. I've seen public health officials declare racism as a "health emergency" for example. Does that mean speaking against the excesses of social justice could also be treated as misinformation? The darker side of this story is that this is a gentle way to coerce censorship from private organizations that provide telecommunications services. Since we don't have a public social media service where government censorship would not be permitted, it seems optimal for those who seek to suppress free speech to rely on large private companies who are willing to police speech on their behalf. Matt Taibbi recently wrote about how Jen Psaki admitted that the Biden administration is flagging posts for Facebook to suppress, which seemed like it violates free speech principles, and this new proposed legislation seems to codify it more explicitly.