Mozilla: We Must Do MORE to Silence Wrongthink on the Internet

While critics ranging from anti-Putin activists in Russia to the ACLU have expressed deep concerns about the level of unmitigated censorship power enjoyed by the Big Tech cabal in the United States, at least one company thinks that recent actions by Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon, and Apple haven’t gone nearly far enough in silencing political wrongthink.

In a statement, the Mozilla Foundation – the parent company behind the Firefox browser, argued that Big Tech needs to do more to change the “dangerous dynamics” of the internet.

“This week we saw the culmination of a four-year disinformation campaign orchestrated by the President,” Mozilla wrote. “We have to acknowledge how the internet was misused to get here.”

If Mozilla put out any statements decrying the dangerous disinformation that led to the BLM riots of last summer, we sure must have missed it. Then again, a lot of that disinformation was spread directly through old media networks like NBC News and The New York Times, so maybe that’s why this internet foundation was slow to notice.

In the article, Mozilla chairwoman Mitchell Baker went on to claim that the “rampant use of the internet to foment violence and hate, and reinforce white supremacy is about more than any one personality.”

After reciting the usual rhetoric about how terrible the president is, Baker called for those in charge of the internet to find solutions – most of which seem geared towards cracking down on freedom of speech.

“We need solutions that don’t start after untold damage has been done,” she wrote. “Changing these dangerous dynamics requires more than just the temporary silencing or permanent removal of bad actors from social media platforms.”

Among her suggestions:

•     Reveal who is paying for advertisements, how much they are paying and who is being targeted.
•     Commit to meaningful transparency of platform algorithms so we know how and what content is being amplified, to whom, and the associated impact.
•     Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation.
•     Work with independent researchers to facilitate in-depth studies of the platforms’ impact on people and our societies, and what we can do to improve things.

It is not surprising that Big Tech has used the events at the Capitol to indulge themselves in a mission they were on long before last Wednesday: To silence anyone left-of-center, anyone who criticizes progressivism, and anyone who isn’t absolutely thrilled with Silicon Valley’s total and complete capture of the public square. Not surprising, but it ought to be very disturbing.