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Washington, D.C. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced legislation to halt Big Techs censorship of Americans, defend free speech on the internet, and level the playing field to remove unfair protections that shield massive Silicon Valley firms from accountability. The Disincentivizing Internet Service Censorship of Online Users and Restrictions on Speech and Expression (DISCOURSE) Act would hold Big Tech responsible for complying with pre-existing obligations per Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996 and clarify ambiguous terms that allow Big Tech to engage in censorship.

Specifically, the DISCOURSE Act updates the statute so that when a market-dominant firm actively promotes or censors certain material or viewpoints -- including through the manipulative use of algorithms -- it no longer receives protections. The bill also limits Section 230 immunities for large corporations that fail to live up to the statutes obligations.

Big Tech has destroyed countless Americans reputations, openly interfered in our elections by banning news stories, and baselessly censored important topics like the origins of the coronavirus, Rubio said. It is absurd that these massive companies receive special protections through Federal law, even as they tear our country apart. No more free passes -- it is time to hold Big Tech accountable for their actions.

When it was first passed in 1996, Section 230 was intended to enable internet companies to host third-party content and engage in targeted moderation of the worst content without being treated as publishers, which are generally held accountable for the content that appears in its publication. But in the 25 years since the CDAs passage, internet companies have developed from tiny start-ups that needed the protections afforded by Section 230 into some of the largest corporations on Earth.

In addition to their growth, these internet companies also changed their missions. Todays tech giants use opaque algorithms and unaccountable teams of moderators to manipulate online discourse to their worldview. The result is a highly distorted public square in which Americans are censored on a daily basis.

Industry and policy experts have lauded Rubios work and the DISCOURSE Act:

"Senator Rubio deserves a lot of credit for coming up with this innovative approach to reforming Section 230. The DISCOURSE Act holds Big Tech companies accountable not only for their censorship and viewpoint discrimination, but also for their algorithmic amplification of content. This makes perfect sense. If a Big Tech company arbitrarily picks winners and losers when it comes to speech, it is itself speaking, so why should it enjoy a special immunity from civil liability for that speech? We appreciate Senator Rubio's commitment to fighting Big Tech censorship, and we hope this legislation starts an important conversation in the months ahead." - Jon Schweppe, director of policy and government affairs, American Principles Project

"We are thankful for the hard work of Senator Marco Rubio and his staff in addressing the growing concerns of NRB Members about the power of Big Tech to censor and stifle free speech. This legislation is a great first step in ensuring digital platforms are open for free speech and the gospel. We encourage the Senate to take a very serious look at this important legislation." - Troy Miller, CEO of NRB

Oracle appreciates Sen. Rubios efforts to introduce the DISCOURSE Act, which will preserve Section 230 immunities for those upstart innovators who need it but limit the protections for dominant tech platforms, who do not.

Senator Marco Rubios proposed legislation to reform Section 230 is an important step in the right direction. The Internet Accountability Project (IAP) applauds his efforts, and we hope other Republican senators will join him.

A section-by-section overview of the bill is available here, and a one-pager is here.

Key provisions of the DISCOURSE Act are also listed below.

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Rubio Introduces Sec 230 Legislation to Crack Down on Big Tech Algorithms and Protect Free Speech - Senator Marco Rubio

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House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., unveiled plans over the weekend to hold Big Tech companies accountable for what he described as "conservative censorship" and anticompetitive practices.

In a letter to fellow Republicans on Sunday, McCarthy outlined plans that would curb existing legal protections for companies like Twitter if they censor content while making it easier for state attorneys general to bring antitrust actions against tech behemoths like Google and Amazon if they break the law.

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"For the sake of preserving free speech and a free economy, its time Big Tech faces the music," McCarthy said. "House Republicans are ready to lead."

The GOP leader pointed to 2018, when conservative figures such as Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and Donald Trump Jr. were "shadow banned" on Twitter, while Google search results for "California Republicans" compared them to Nazis.

"Since then, the examples of conservative censorship and bias across internet platforms has proliferated," the letter said. "Each one of you are all too familiar with how Big Tech and its overwhelmingly liberal executives want to set the agenda and silence conservatives."

Fox News reached out to Twitter and Google for comment, but they did not immediately respond.

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McCarthys plan, which he will be introducing this week alongside Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Cathy Rodgers, R-Wash., includes rolling back protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields online platforms from liability regarding statements made by their users. Republicans have been arguing that social media companies like Twitter and Facebook should instead be treated more like newspapers because their history of censoring posts based on their messaging is more akin to editorial decision-making than simple enforcement of site rules.

The Republican plan, referred to as the "Framework to Stop the Bias and Check Big Tech," calls for a system of transparency, which would be implemented "by mandating that any Big Tech content moderation decisions or censorship must be listed, with specificity, on a publicly available website."

The last part of the plan addresses concerns of monopolistic practices. As an example, McCarthy claimed that Amazon, Apple and Google "use their platforms to tip the scales towards higher fees and their growing product lines," and that "just about every big technology company" copies products if they are made by competitors that they cannot just acquire.

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"We will provide an expedited court process with direct appeal to the Supreme Court and empower state attorneys general to help lead the charge against the tech giants to break them up," McCarthy said. "We will also reform the administrative state and remove impediments that delay taking action on Big Tech power."

Both parties have taken steps to rein in tech giants, but McCarthy claimed that his Democratic counterparts have not sufficiently addressed the problems, and have only exacerbated the situation.

"House Democrats have advanced a plan that not only ignores addressing conservative censorship, it makes it worse," McCarthy said. "And their plan empowers a federal bureaucracy with no accountability."

Meanwhile, as leaders in Washington look to go after the tech companies, experts have warned of the unintended consequences of passing sweeping antitrust legislation.

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"Bills under review, as currently drafted, would condemn outright specified business practices and acquisitions by big digital platforms, without any inquiry into the facts on hand," former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) general counsel and Mercatus Center senior research fellow Alden Abbott said in a Thursday statement. "As such, they would outlaw and disincentivize a great deal of behavior that may benefit consumers and drive innovation."

Abbott added that the bills would "turn enforcers into regulators," which would slow innovation and spawn "economic inefficiency, to the detriment of the American economy."

Fox Business' Audrey Conklin and Megan Henney contributed to this report.

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McCarthy unveils plans to hold Big Tech accountable and 'stop the bias' - Fox Business

As wisely and eloquently stated by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his 1839 play, Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy, the pen is mightier than the sword. This adage holds that written word can act as a powerful tool in the transmission of ideas. Why else would oppressive regimes, and other avid enforcers of the status quo, have reverted to censorship and book burning throughout the ages?

The United States has been the only nation known to have forbidden education to people they have enslaved, and legislators even went as far to enact laws making it a crime in most Southern states, excluding when they imposed Christian conversion through religious instruction.

Related: Dont just sing for Juneteenth. Commit to ending the racism that made it necessary.

Slaveholders identified literacy as a direct threat to the institution of slavery and their economic dependency on the labor it provided. If enslaved people developed literacy, they would be able to learn their history and read the writings of abolitionists, on topics such as attempts to help people escape slave-holding territories, or regarding the 1791-1804 slave revolution in Haiti, or how the end of slavery came to the British Empire in 1833.

Following an enslaved peoples uprising led by abolitionist Nat Turner in 1831, some states went further and extended the education ban to free Black people as well.

A North Carolina law of 1831 stated in part: Teaching slaves to read and write, tends to excite dissatisfaction in their minds, and to produce insurrection and rebellion.

The Code of Virginia of 1849 was passed to prevent the enslaved from assembling for religious or educational purposes as legislators believed that education would lead to uprisings.

Slavers believed that literacy would understandably make enslaved people angry, dissatisfied, and rebellious. As stated by a lawyer and clerk of the Supreme Court of the United States, Elias B. Caldwell: The more you improve the condition of these people, the more you cultivate their minds, the more miserable you make them, in their present state, he argued.

You give them a higher relish for those privileges which they can never attain, and turn what we intend for a blessing [slavery] into a curse. No, if they must remain in their present situation, keep them in the lowest state of degradation and ignorance. The nearer you bring them to the condition of brutes, the better chance do you give them of possessing their apathy.

With the end of slavery, the legal exclusion of education to formerly enslaved people, their children, and their descendants did not expire. Throughout Reconstruction, the Jim Crow era, and the several decades since, up to the current moment, African-Americans have faced segregation (de jure, and then de facto), underfunded schools, implicit bias from educators and school administrators, and public messaging promoting the myths and stereotypes of inferior intellectual capacities in the mind of people with African heritage.

Following the Revolutionary War, leaders such as Thomas Jefferson and others called for state supported and mandated public education, believing that the very survival of this republic depended on an educated populace.

Jefferson advocated for a three-year publicly supported education for all white children but no such guarantees were to be extended to enslaved Africans or their children. In addition, he argued for advanced education provided to just a select few white males, and not even white females.

As Jefferson wrote in 1782, the schools will be raking a few geniuses from the rubbish. He included all enslaved Africans as an integral part of that pile of rubbish.

How very ironic is it that today, several states are either proposing or have passed laws prohibiting the teaching of slavery and other aspects of U.S. history that are not particularly flattering?

On June 8 of this year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), signed what many are calling an anti-Critical Race Theory act into law, which seriously restricts what educators may teach in history and civics courses throughout the states public schools.

Texas joins a number of states, most largely with Republican-controlled legislatures, that are weaponizing the teaching of history to excite their base with the scare tactic that the teaching of Critical Race Theory will make white students feel bad about themselves and will result in Black students hating the United States.

Professors primarily teach Critical Race Theory a fairly technical set of concepts in college and university departments of legal studies. Generally, educators do not present CRT in public schools.

Critical Race Theory was developed by notable and preeminent legal scholars, educators, and theorists such as Derrick Bell, Patricia Williams, Richard Delgado, Kimberl Williams Crenshaw, Camara Phyllis Jones, Mari Matsuda, Gloria Ladson-Billings, and others. Teaching the theory rests on several essential pillars:

This theory, though, is not simply some notion fabricated by intellectuals in the Ivory Tower. Instead, social researchers develop theories from studying real human behavior, notably the lived experience of people and groups.

Much like scientific testing for medical treatments and therapies, social research requires that a theory is demonstrated to treat or cure what it is developed for, and continue to show effectiveness in large samples of patients or in practice.

Researchers results are empirically based on that social research, rather than coming from the researchers passion to propagandize or impose their personal, political, or philosophical agenda.

If I were to boil down the goal of the tenets of CRT into a simple explanation, it would be that we must study and teach history age-appropriately and truthfully. So, why is that so scary to some people?

White fragility.

Robin DiAngelo coined the term white fragility in 2011 to refer to the defensive position taken by white people when questioned on the concept of race, or about their own race.

Are white people really so fragile that they cannot discuss the legacy of racism on which the United States is based? Do racial discussions actually teach white people to hate themselves and black people to hate the United States?

Anti-diversity people are not merely hesitant to address historical facts, but they are averse to facts and history. They deny and reject the reality of the past.

They are opposed to arming young people with the truth, which would provide them a greater sense of confidence to join with their peers and elders to increase their knowledge base.

The state legislatures attempting to deny the teaching of U.S. history, in all its dimensions, treat todays students as they once treated enslaved Africans: with fear, superstition, and utter disrespect.

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People want to censor education for the same reasons that slaves weren't allowed to read - LGBTQ Nation

Bill Maher took big tech to the woodshed over censorship of the COVID-19 Wuhan lab leak theory that was suppressed on social media. The "Real Time" host also lambasted the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday night's episode.

Maher called out Google and Facebook by name for censorship of the coronavirus lab leak theory that suggests that it is possible that COVID-19 escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

"Facebook banned any post for four months about COVID coming from a lab," Maher said during a panel discussion on the political talk show. "Of course now, even the Biden administration is looking into this."

"Google a Wall Street Journal reporter asked the head of Google's health division noticed that they don't do auto-fill searches for 'coronavirus lab leak' the way they do for any other question and the guy said, 'Well, we want to make sure that the search isn't leading people down pathways that we would find to be not authoritative information,'" Maher slammed Google, which has over 86% of the search market share.

Maher then blasted the big tech behemoths, "Well, you were wrong, Google and Facebook! We don't know! The reason why we want you is cause we're checking on this s***!"

Maher continued to criticize the head of Google's health division. "He said, 'We want to ensure that the first thing users see is information from the CDC, the WHO.," Maher added.

"That's who I'm checking on," Maher furiously proclaimed. "The WHO has been very corrupt about a lot of s***, and the CDC has been wrong about a lot of s***. This is outrageous that I can't look this information up!"

Maher then castigated YouTube for censoring evolutionary biology professor Bret Weinstein's podcast on the video hosting platform. Weinstein may have his channel removed from YouTube for interviewing a critical care and pulmonary medicine specialist, who touted the effectiveness of the drug ivermectin as a treatment for coronavirus.

"YouTube should not be telling me what I can see about ivermectin. Ivermectin isn't a registered Republican, it's a drug," Maher said. "I don't know if it works or not and a lot of other doctors don't either."

(CAUTION: Explicit language)

In April, Maher chastised the media for peddling "panic porn," and praised Republican Governors Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott for opening Florida and Texas back up to allow Americans to go outside.

"Sunshine is the best disinfectant and Vitamin D is the key to a robust immune system," Maher said. "Texas lifted its COVID restrictions recently and their infection rates went down in part because of people getting outside to let the sun and wind do their thing. But to many liberals, 'That can't be right because Texas and beach-loving Florida have Republican governors,' but life is complicated."

Also in this week's episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher," the HBO host talked to director Quentin Tarantino about political correctness and cancel culture.

"I've always really appreciated the way you've pushed back when everyone's tried to stifle you, shut you up, shame you, bully you, corral your artistic licensethey tried it with the last one, with 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,' some bulls*** about Margot Robbie doesn't have enough lines," Maher told the legendary director. "You do what I wish other people would do: instead of apologizing like a little p****, you say, 'I don't agree with your assessment.' What's so hard about that?"

Tarantino, director of "Kill Bill" and "Pulp Fiction," was attacked and labeled as a "sexist" by the media and online critics over giving actress Margot Robbie only a few lines of dialogue in the movie "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood."

Tarantino responded, "Look, even when we're in a pressure situation where your movie is opening next Friday if somebody brings up something that's actually legitimate, I'll even have a conversation with them about it, because I'm actually into interesting thought, and I don't even have to agree with you but when it's just BS, when it's just bulls***."

Maher replied, "Well, it seems like criticism in the recent years has gone to this place of not just 'OK, you can criticize a movie,' but they seem to be saying, 'This isn't the movie I would have made.' Because you can't."

Maher later said, "There are two kinds of movies: virtue-signalers and superhero movies."

Quentin Tarantino: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO) http://www.youtube.com

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Bill Maher trounces big tech over lab leak theory censorship: 'You were wrong, Google and Facebook!' - TheBlaze

In Anne Robinsons first episode of Countdown she cuts an authoritative figure. Chatty and encouraging, the presenter many remember from her days as the cutting, contentious host of The Weakest Link is gone almost. Is that as fun as it sounds? she sarcastically asks her first contestant, Steve, of his job as an accountant. Some contestants I have to go much more gently with than I would have done on The Weakest Link, she explains. Others are brilliantly funny, and thats not always been exploited in the past.

When I speak to Robinson, shes already filmed her first 30 episodes. Quiz shows are notoriously demanding of their hosts and crew and Robinson has been filming five episodes a day in Salfords Media City, three days a week. But after more than 30 years working in television, the 76-year-old is dismissive of the hard work she puts in: Im used to long hours.

Robinson takes over as host of the long-running series today (on Channel 4, at 2:10pm) after Nick Hewer, once better known for his role as one of Lord Alan Sugars advisors on The Apprentice, announced he was leaving last December. She is determined to make the job her own and certainly doesnt take lightly the responsibility of steering the beloved 39-year-old series.

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Im professional, so I do worry, she says of her performance. I was anxious at the start simply because I hadnt done it before it would be stupid to think that I was going to be brilliant from day one. It took a bit of time to get my head round the grammar of the programme: where to go and who to talk to next.

The team have been incredibly welcoming, and she finds mathematician Rachel Riley and word expert Susie Dent very impressive. Hewer didnt give her any advice on how to handle the show, though Robinson is unsure of how helpful he would have been, given the changes the production has had to make to stay Covid-secure since he left. Sometimes the break between shows is 15 minutes and theres a very long, one-way system to get back to your dressing room, she says. Nick only had to change his jacket I have to change my whole outfit, get my hair done, redo my lipstick and maybe choose a new necklace.

Robinson was born in Crosby, and spent time in Liverpool as a young adult when she took charge of her mothers poultry dealing business. She started her media career as a trainee newspaper journalist at the Daily Mail in 1967 and went on to have success at The Sunday Times and the Daily Mirror and played a part in breaking huge stories, from the details of legendary music manager Brian Epsteins death to news of Princess Dianas eating disorder.

She moved into broadcasting in 1982 as a regular guest on Question Time, before taking the role as presenter of Points of View, where she stayed for 11 years. She still draws on her journalistic instincts to read how ironic she can be with contestants. In that sense, its no different from how she approached her tenure at The Weakest Link (which ran from 2000 to 2007) her style was funny and edgy in the noughties, but is now often recalled as cruel and bullish.

Viewers with a forgiving view of her performance on The Weakest Link which included mocking players over anything from their appearance (So you havent had any time to work on yourself then? she once asked a beauty therapist) to their perceived sexuality (Why are you dressed like a lesbian?) often put the controversy down to Robinson playing a character, but she doesnt ascribe to such a merciful assessment.

Those conversations arent any different from those youd hear in a newsroom. I never let a thought go unsaid what your mum would say while watching the telly at home. She argues that the competitors were far from lambs thrown to her verbal slaughter and were often in on the ruse.

Quiz show contestants are incredibly feisty and competitive, she adds. I remember asking one man why he was voting off another and he said, If you cant name the Teletubbies then you shouldnt be here.

When I ask how she feels about criticism of the show, she says it was a different time. You cant say a lot of the things that I said now. We have become much more woke. She points out that it took 16 years for Vanessa Feltz, who appeared on a celebrity version of the show, to decide she was upset over Robinsons question, How can someone like you attract gorgeous black boyfriends?

Theres a lot of self-censoring, adds Robinson. Theres a lot of television executives who are too scared to criticise or to allow anything on that has a bit of edge to it. I dont quite know who it is thats deciding I can say this and cant say that.

Robinson is in full support of the recent trend among cultural commentators and the tabloid press of anti-wokeness, then. She thinks the launch of GB News, Andrew Neils 24-hour news channel designed to challenge the homogeneity of the current media landscape, is terrific and refreshing, even if it does need to sort out the lighting.

Even if I dont agree with its more right-wing views, I think it will challenge the woke, which is important.

The broadcasters views on modern feminism in the wake of the #MeToo movement have made headlines in the last few years. On the Today programme in 2017, she said that Forty years ago there were very few of us women in power and we had a much more robust attitude to men behaving badly.

It sparked accusations of victim-blaming and internalised misogyny, but today, she doubles down: Were in a funny place only because my generation put up with all the sexism and got on with it, she says.

We have really terrible women too now that theyve got to the top jobs all that has become much more equal. But these clever women are often lacking in confidence. Im sympathetic to that, but it means that they dont deal with badly behaved blokes as I would.

Women arent naturally geared to the treachery of the workplace and, in my day, if you were there as a woman, you were pretty feisty to start off with. Thankfully, all those jobs are available to women, whether youre feisty or not.

How does she propose we tackle the confidence crisis she sees? I wish that instead of wasting their time doing a masters degree, women could spend a year learning how to cope with office life and how to negotiate a good salary. In her 2002 memoir, she wrote about doubling her salary, and getting a brand new Mercedes Benz included in her contract.

As Rory Bremner, Robinsons first celebrity guest in Dictionary Corner, points out at the top of the opening episode, more men called Des have hosted Countdown than women. Robinson is its first female presenter. Shes proud to hold the title theres one episode where everyone on screen is a woman, we did sort of punch the air a little bit but wishes her appointment didnt come as a surprise.

It shouldnt be astonishing to anyone. It sort of suggests that despite being a woman and therefore not as bright as a bloke Ive been asked to do a job that men normally do, she says.

Weve got a queen of England, weve had two female prime ministers, women can fly aircraft and be High Court judges and do everything men can do its time we took that as read.

You may as well say Im the first presenter with an O negative blood type.

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Countdowns new host Anne Robinson: Theres a lot of self-censoring on TV - iNews