In a debate with Democratic candidate Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.), questions quickly emerged about whether Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) would challenge the 2024 election results. Evolving into a debate about censorship and big tech.
“You said you would not certify the last presidential election and would require states to submit surrogate electors. That has been called unconstitutional and illegal,” host Norah O’Donnell asked Vance. “Would you again seek to challenge the results of this year’s election, even if every governor endorsed the results?”
Vance said Democrats were not denouncing threats to democracy; real What is worrying is the threat of “big tech companies suppressing their fellow citizens.” Vance said Harris’ desire to “censor those who spread disinformation” is “a far greater threat to democracy than anything we have seen” in the past four decades.
“Kamala Harris is undergoing censorship on an industrial scale,” Vance said, adding that it was a greater threat than former President Donald Trump’s call for “peaceful” protests during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Much more. Vance compared Trump’s refusal to believe the 2020 election results to Democrats’ concerns about Russian foreign interference in the 2016 election, who pointed to the purchase of Facebook ads by foreign agents as one of the reasons Clinton lost to Trump. (A Republican-led Senate committee concluded in 2020 that Russia did try to interfere in the 2016 election to benefit Trump’s candidacy.)
“January 6th was not a Facebook ad,” Walz countered, calling Vance’s version of events “revisionist history.”
“January 6th is not a Facebook ad”
Vance was obviously hinting at the events behind Murthy v. Missouria case decided by the Supreme Court earlier this year. The case involves allegations that the Biden administration is forcing censorship on tech platforms. The judges ruled in favor of the Biden administration based on standing, but they also expressed doubts about whether there was a meaningful connection between the government’s promotion of platforms like Facebook and those platforms’ subsequent censorship decisions.
Walz tried to steer the debate back to the original question. “Did he lose the 2020 election?” he asked Vance.
“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance replied. “In the wake of COVID-2020, is Kamala Harris banning Americans from speaking their minds?”
“That’s definitely an unanswerable answer,” Walz said.
“If you don’t talk about censorship, that’s a damn no answer,” Vance shot back.
At another point, Vance accused Harris of wanting to “use the power of government and big tech companies to silence people from speaking their minds.” Trump himself recently suggested that some people “should be jailed for the way they talk about our judges and our justices,” referring to criticism of the Supreme Court.
Walz responded to Vance with the widely used but misleading claim that “shouting fire in a crowded theater” is the Supreme Court’s test for unprotected speech. Vance didn’t dispute the premise, but claimed “you want to kick people off Facebook who say young children shouldn’t wear masks. This is not a fire in a crowded theater. This is criticizing government policy, which is It is the right of every American.
“I don’t run Facebook,” Walz said. “This is not a debate and this has nothing to do with anywhere else but the world of Donald Trump.”
