A Colorado State Senator is introducing one of the most draconian anti-free speech pieces of legislation in American history, seeking to create a governmental press licensing commission to regulate online speech.
Kerry Donovan of Vail’s “Colorado Digital Communications Act” would require internet platforms to register with the government in Colorado and submit to censorship demands. The bill targets platforms such as Parler, Gab, and Big Tech monopolies such as Facebook, (unconstitutionally) threatening the websites with fines of $5,000 a day for refusing to register with the Digital Communications Division.
The “communications division” would be obligated to fight against what Donovan says are “unfair or discriminatory digital communications practices,” raising serious questions about the standard the Democrat intends to use to justify government crackdowns.
Donovan’s act goes on to define unfair or discriminatory digital communications practices as “practices that promote hate speech; undermine election integrity; [and] disseminate intentional disinformation, conspiracy theories, or fake news.” Under Donovan’s tyrannical law, claiming JFK was shot by two shooters would be criminal. Her standard for criminal speech is little more than “fake news,” in an utterly lazy power grab to ban (truthful) online right-wing speech.
The communications division would be granted the legal power to “subpoena witnesses and compel the testimony of witnesses and the production of books, papers, and records.” Such a provision could be used easily by Democrats to bully and harass free speech internet users who build and maintain properties that offer an alternative to Big Tech monopolies.
Platforms that decline to cow to Vail’s censorship demands would be liable to injunctions and “equitable relief.” It’s easy to imagine this kind of thing as unconstitutional on arrival, but as elite Democrats increasingly disregard the First Amendment, it’s not hard to imagine its potential enactment in Colorado as the first steps to create a fully censored global internet with content filtered through the preferences of the state.