during an appearance Sunday morning with FNC’s Maria Bartiromo. “If foreign governments want to try to propagandize our population, I doubt they’re going to succeed, frankly, unless we do a very bad job of talking to our own people about what our goals are,” Taibbi said.
MATT TAIBBI: Well, honestly, what it reminds me of is early 2017, when Google, Twitter, and Facebook were dragged to the Hill by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and it was demanded of them that they come up with a plan to prevent the sowing of discord. Governments are always going to want these platforms to guarantee to them that they will have access to the content moderation machinery of these platforms. And TikTok is probably in the same position as those platforms were back in 2017. It’s a very difficult question, speech-wise, like, what do you do about these platforms? So I’m not really sure how I feel about it. I think it would be a major unprecedented step to block it. MARIA BARTIROMO: It would be an unprecedented step. But you also have these efforts by foreign adversaries to buy into U.S. media. Look, take Russia. We talked last week about the potential of an acquisition of Forbes Media. Now, I heard from one of those people, Shiv Khemka, who said: “No, we are not attached to Vladimir Putin.” And yet there are many people who feel that that group wanting to take over Forbes Media is an issue. So, what about that? I mean, the U.S. media companies are U.S.-owned, with the exception of TikTok, or perhaps, if we see a Forbes Media deal go through from a foreign adversary. TAIBBI: Well, I think the opinion of Americans historically has always been that our democracy is vibrant enough that we can withstand propaganda from other countries by simply having a better argument, making a better argument ourselves to our own population. That’s the principle of free speech. If other governments want to try to propagandize our population, I doubt they’re going to succeed, frankly, unless we do a very bad job of talking to our own people about what our goals are.
Source: Matt Taibbi: It Would Be A “Major Unprecedented Step” Away From Free Speech To Ban TikTok
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