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Utah Gov. Spencer Cox vetoed a bill on Tuesday that sought to limit perceived censorship by social media companies like Facebook and Twitter.

Senate Bill 228, which narrowly passed during this years legislative general session, would have required social media companies to provide clear information about the social corporations moderation practices and created an opportunity for a Utah account holder to appeal certain moderation practices that the social media corporation employs on a Utah account holders account or post, according to a summary of the bill.

What this does is it deals with free speech. I think our free speech rights have been infringed by some large tech folks and I think thats a problem, Republican Spanish Fork Sen. Mike McKell, the bills sponsor, told lawmakers on March 1. And I think what weve got is a good bill to create a process to create transparency; thats what this bill does.

In a press release, the governors office said Cox had vetoed the bill, his first veto since taking office in January, due to technical issues with the legislation and after speaking with legislative leadership.

The press release noted that censorship by tech companies is a serious concern and that the veto will not hinder nor prevent Utah from finding the right policy solution.

The sponsors of this bill have raised valid questions about the impact social media platforms can have on public discourse and debate, Cox said. Our country continues to grapple with very real and novel issues around freedom of speech, the rights of private companies and the toxic divisiveness caused by these new forms of connection, information and communication. While I have serious concerns about the bill, I appreciate the willingness of the bills sponsors to continue to seek a better solution.

Lawmakers considered the bill following cries at the national level of liberal bias among social media company executives and censorship of conservative posts and accounts.

Not very many things infuriate me more than to see blatant censorship, especially when its one-sided, Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, told his colleagues on Feb. 26 while speaking in support of the bill. And I can cite 10 examples from the last six months.

But other state lawmakers said the bill raised questions of constitutionality, including Sen. Gene Davis, D-Salt Lake City, who said he had real concerns and believed social media platforms should be able to make the same editorial judgments as newspapers, TV stations and other forms of media.

They make that decision, Davis said. And these (social) media companies are no different, I dont believe, than our general media is.

Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights, said the bill is completely unenforceable and has no parameters.

I dont understand how this is actually going to work, said Riebe. So unless we can enforce something, I really dont think we should be passing laws.

S.B. 228 passed 21-6 in the Senate on March 1 and 39-35 in the House on March 4.

In the press release, McKell said he intends to open a new bill on May 5 to address the censorship issues.

Censorship practices are un-American and likely unconstitutional, he said. In Utah, we defend the right to freely express opinions and views, regardless of political or religious affiliation.

The Spanish Fork senator continued, The outcome of S.B. 228 is not ideal; however, the issue of free speech and online censorship remains a priority and policy will continue to be refined throughout the interim.

Connor Richards covers government, the environment and south Utah County for the Daily Herald. He can be reached at crichards@heraldextra.com and 801-344-2599.

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Utah governor vetoes bill limiting perceived social media censorship - Daily Herald

New York, March 23, 2021 Kazakh authorities should revise new amendments to the countrys journalist accreditation policies to ensure they do not restrict the freedom of the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

On March 11, the Ministry of Information and Social Development adopted amendments to the 2013 Rules of Accreditation of Journalists, which include a requirement for journalists to work with a loosely defined host when covering government events, according to news reports and Tamara Kaleyeva, head of the Kazakh press freedom group Adil Soz, who spoke with CPJ in a phone interview.

According to Kaleyeva, the regulations do not define how the host would be selected; she said that the state organizations organizing such events would most likely be in charge of appointing the host, and that person would therefore be a guard, a censor.

The amended rules will go into effect on March 27, according to those reports.

Kazakh authorities should immediately revise the new amendments to the countrys journalist accreditation policies to ensure that they do not limit press freedom, said Gulnoza Said, CPJs Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. These regulations could prevent journalists from asking questions that are inconvenient for authorities, which deeply contradicts the very concept of a free press.

The amendments, which CPJ reviewed, state that the host would be in charge of ensuring that all the participants of an event follow the events theme (content), time limitations, and maintain public order.

The new regulations establish the responsibilities and rights of a host which are so big that, practically, they limit the rights of the journalists and introduce censorship, Kaleyeva said.

In Kazakhstan, journalists are required to possess accreditations to cover press conferences or other events hosted by any state institution, and the procedures for issuing such accreditations are regulated by the Rules of Accreditation of Journalists, according to reports and Kaleyeva.

Saniya Toiken, a Kazakhstan correspondent for Radio Azattyq, the local service of the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,told CPJ via phone that the new regulations will protect the state workers from [answering] the uncomfortable questions.

Now, if a moderator tells us to shut up, we will have to shut up. They have turned us into a herd of sheep, she said.

Kazakh Minister of Information and Social Development Aida Balayeva was quoted in Radio Azattyq as saying that the amendments are necessary so that the participants are following the theme of the event, the time restrictions, and the public order, so that the topic discussed could be explained most effectively.

This is by no means an attempt to limit the rights of the journalists, she said.

CPJ emailed the Kazakh Ministry of Information and Social Development for comment, but did not receive any response.

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Kazakhstan adopts new accreditation requirements that journalists fear will promote censorship - CPJ Press Freedom Online

The American people deserve to know whats going on at the border. In shutting out journalists, President Joe Biden is repeating the mistakes of his predecessors, trying to control the message by limiting access instead of trusting the public.

The government has blocked the media from visiting overcrowded facilities holding an increasing number of unaccompanied minors detained at the border. With a shelter system failing to keep pace, many of the migrant children traveling alone are being held in overcrowded conditions and for far longer than what is legally allowed. This is a complicated challenge not of Bidens making, but neither is it unprecedented or entirely unexpected. It is fully Bidens responsibility to respond to the new arrivals in humane and effective ways. Its early yet, but his response so far is in need of improvement.

Images released Monday by U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, from a temporary Customs and Border Protection tent near McAllen show children packed into rooms with clear plastic walls, lying on thin mattresses on hard floors and covered with foil blankets.

These pictures are not flattering to the administration, but we can handle the truth. What the truth cant handle is a lack of transparency. It not only erodes trust, but it also leaves the facts open to interpretation, spin and outright lies.

Enter U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. He and Sen. John Cornyn are traveling to the border Friday with about a dozen of their Republican colleagues. In a letter to the president, Cruz chastised the Biden administration for refusing to allow any press to accompany them.

It is not enough for members of the Senate to see what is happening the American people must see, Cruz wrote.

We couldnt agree more that the administrations media blackout is terrible policy and worse politics. But Cruz and company headed to the border Friday must think very little of the American people if they expect their outrage to be taken at face value. Where was their fury during the previous administrations straight-arming of the media, and by extension the public, as conditions on the border deteriorated to levels far beyond what were seeing this early in Bidens tenure? Where was it? It didnt exist.

Whats different now is that Cruz wants fodder to play the kind of divisive politics he is best known for. He cynically hopes that the images that emerge will be worth more than the thousand words that can put them into context. The better to push his narrative of an unprecedented crisis at the border created by Bidens radical immigration policies.

Thats a common theme among his GOP colleagues in Washington, now, and among some Texas officials, too. Last week, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy called the arrival of migrant children a crisis created by Bidens policies. Thats wrong on both fronts.

An analysis of CBP data published in the Washington Post found what has become a predictable increase that follows a seasonal upswing in undocumented immigration as winter ends and before the hot summer begins. Movement during 2020 was affected by the pandemic, but 2021 figures through February are almost a mirror image of what happened in 2019, University of California at San Diego researchers found. An analysis by the libertarian Cato Institute found similar results.

While preliminary data for March point to more of a surge and officials have said they expect the numbers to reach a 20-year high, those figures do not represent individual crossings, but in many cases repeated attempts by the same person. For most migrants, the border remains closed over COVID concerns, meaning that anyone detained is immediately sent back and most likely able to try to cross again. CBP estimates a 40 percent rate of recidivism.

What the presidents critics dont want to recognize is that this has less to do with Biden or Trump than with desperate conditions of violence and poverty that push people to leave their home, regardless of who sits in the White House. A situation made worse last year by two hurricanes that pummeled the region and the spread of the deadly pandemic.

These are complex problems that require complex understanding and refuse easy solutions. We continue to be heartened that while Republicans are trying to score easy political points, the Biden administration seems willing to do the hard work.

It continues to expand available shelter space to move kids more quickly from Border Patrol detention, is working on alternatives that would allow asylum seekers to apply from their home countries and has sent officials to Mexico and Guatemala.

On Wednesday, Biden announced that Vice President Kamala Harris will lead efforts to curtail immigration in the short term and implement a long-term strategy to address the root causes.

To that growing list of actions we would add allowing journalists to visit and observe the situation on the border, in detention centers and inside shelters, in a way that protects and respects immigrants. Allowing NBC News to follow a recent visit by White House officials and lawmakers to a shelter facility in Texas is a step in the right direction, but more must be done to set the record straight.

Speaking at a press conference Thursday, the president promised to give the media full access, but his timeline was vague.

Thats not good enough. If Biden hopes to find a solution that has eluded past administrations, he will need the support and trust of the American people. That starts with transparency.

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Editorial: Bidens press blackout is bad politics, bad policy. We need truth, not censorship, at the border - Houston Chronicle

Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, rebuked the CEOs of Facebook, Google, and Twitter for their abuse of power and stifling of free speech at the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on censorship Thursday.

Your companies have enormous control over whose ideas are seen, read, or heard around the world. This gives you great power and if misused, as we have seen in the recent years, your actions have ripple effects throughout the world that result in American voices being removed from the marketplace of ideas, the Ohio representative said.

Latta was addressing CEOs Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Sundar Pichai of Google, and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who are all testifying today after House Republicans sent letters to the tech moguls demanding accountability and transparency on censorship practices.

A major topic on the agenda pertains to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. The policy allows for social media platforms to not be treated as publishers of content on their websites, leading to a lack of protection for political speech viewed as deviating from preferences of the platforms.

Prior to the hearing, a spokeswoman for Minority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La told The Federalist that the congressmen supports an alteration to Section 230.

Unless Section 230 is changed, there is no protection of political speech or limit to the censorship conservatives will face in the future, Scalises spokeswoman said.

I am deeply concerned by your decisions to operate your companies in a vague and biased manner, with little to no accountability, while using Section 230 as a shield for your actions and their real-world consequences, Latta said in the hearing.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey claimed that Twitter believes in free expression during the hearing, but simultaneously that speech must be prohibited that is arbitrarily defined as sowing disinformation.

We believe in free expression, Dorsey said. At the same time, we must balance that with our desire for our service not to be used to sew confusion, disinformation, or destruction

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Lawmakers Blast Google, Facebook, And Twitter CEOs On Censorship - The Federalist

Abraham Lincoln said no man has a right to govern another man without that others consent. The only way for people to give their consent, and for those who hold power in a democracy to have legitimacy, is through open debate, access to diverse viewpoints and free and fair elections.

Open debate and fair elections are only possible when conducted under a set of rules that protect civil rights and that everyone agrees are clear, reasonable and administered impartially.

Without standards there can be no fair elections, no consent of the governed and no democracy. In that case a large segment of the public will conclude that those in power got there through fraud, tricks, censorship and other illegitimate means.

A bill recently passed by a narrow margin in the House of Representatives, H.R. 1, and a companion bill pending in the Senate, S.R. 1, would further erode public confidence in the outcome of U.S. elections by weakening standards for voting and seeking to muzzle public debate by limiting how Americans access information, voluntarily join groups and talk among themselves about the issues of the day.

Specifically, H.R. 1/S.R. 1 would force groups of private citizens who speak for principles they believe in to report the names of their private-sector supporters to the government.

Just as the government was barred from outing the supporters of the NAACP early in the civil rights era, those who advocate for equality, civil rights and free speech today should not be required to subject their donors to public harassment, cancellation and intimidation.

H.R.1/S.R.1 would empower the IRS to be used as a political weapon to silence conservative voices, as infamously occurred under the Obama Administration

H.R. 1/S.R. 1 would impose barriers to using online services to communicate conservative and free market messages.

H.R. 1/S.R. 1 would have a chilling effect on free speech, and is especially targeted at proponents of free markets and equal opportunity, those who voice conservative ideas and advocate for the principles of the American Founding.

H.R. 1/S.R. 1 is designed to promote a climate of fear, and foster doubt and self-censorship, because to speak a government-disfavored message or donate private money to a government-disapproved group would be considered too risky.

Supporters of H.R.1/S.R. 1 are afraid of open and vigorous debate. If they had confidence in the their ideas, they would meet their opponents in wide-ranging and open discussions, instead of seeking to use a new law to silence voices they disagree with.

In essence, H.R.1/S.R. 1 is designed to make Americans afraid to talk to each other, donate private money, or join in a common cause related to current political issues because to do so might mean being reported to the government, leading to censoring, cancellation or worse.

Under those conditions the U.S. cannot function as a real democracy in which people have trust in the outcome of elections, can join and donate to a range of non-profit groups, and feel they are participating in a fair system of self-government.

Lincoln and his contemporaries would never have supported H.R. 1 or S.R. 1, and no Member of Congress today who respects Lincolns uplifting vision of freedom and self-government should support them either.

Note: Washington Policy Center has joined with over 130 independent civic organizations to express opposition to H.R.1/S.R.1. This coalition letter to Congress can be found here: https://unitedforprivacy.com/oppose_hr1_s1

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H.R. 1/S.R. 1 seeks to weaken voting standards and silence conservative voices - Washington Policy