Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has a plan to curb false information on the internet, specifically cracking down on tech companies by imposing criminal penalties on them for spreading information that undermines the right to vote. She proposed breaking up companies like Amazon and Facebook. (CNBC, January 20, 2020, by Sunny Kim)
Warren only proposed criminal penalties for false information about polling locations, but Robby Soave, Reason, February 3, 2020, cites her interview with Pen America in arguing that she is hostile to online free speech. Warren favors reform of Section 230 that shields tech companies from ill effects of user speech and generally favors government action in clamping down on tech companies. In that regard she is siding with anti-tech conservatives.
David Harsanyi, New York Post, January 29, 2020, points out the problems in Warren’s plan should she succeed in passing some election legislation. “And if it did survive constitutional review,” Harsanyi writes, “who would be charged with determining what counts as ‘disinformation’ in the future? Will there be an army of government fact-checkers sifting through Twitter accounts, or will Warren farm out the task of monitoring billions of daily interactions to our trusted media?”