One year ago, during a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez demanded that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg “take down lies” on the platform. As the World Socialist Web Site explained at the time: “The basic assumption of the first amendment is that the government does not know what is a ‘fact’ and what is a ‘lie.’ It is for the electorate to decide for themselves, and not the business of the government, or corporations acting on its behalf, to force-feed ideas to the public.”
Over the past year, Facebook and the other major social media giants such as Twitter and YouTube have been working directly with US intelligence agencies to censor online content, especially socialist publishers and websites, in order to defend the capitalist two-party system against a growing movement to the left by workers and young people. This process has been accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic and the disastrous response of the entire ruling class to it.
-- Kevin Reed, "Biden-Harris campaign demands increased censorship by Facebook before 2020 election" (WSWS).
