Just a few days after US Senator Elizabeth Warren called for more big tech censorship, Democrat Rep. Frederica Wilson (FL) has echoed her sentiments and said that people who make fun of members of Congress online should be shut down and prosecuted.
Wilson made the comments after leading a congressional delegation to inspect an immigrant detention facility earlier today.
Here’s her full statement on people who make fun of Congress online:
“Those people who are online making fun of members of Congress are a disgrace and there is no need for anyone to think that is unacceptable. We’re gonna shut them down and work with whoever it is to shut them down and they should be prosecuted. You cannot intimidate members of Congress, threaten members of Congress, it is against the law and it’s a shame in this United States of America.”
As is often the case with people who call for more online censorship, Wilson conflates legal speech (making fun of members of Congress) with illegal speech (threatening members of Congress) and then calls for it all to be shut down.
Wilson’s calls for online censorship are reflective of a similar push from many members of the Democratic party. US Senator Elizabeth Warren recently said tech companies have an obligation to stop what she sees as “vile lies” dead in their tracks, despite claiming that she wants “a social media marketplace that isn’t dominated by a single censor” a few months ago. And a day before Warren called for more big tech censorship, 27 Democratic leaders sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying that Facebook is not doing enough to fight what they deem to be “political disinformation.”
