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Did Twitter or Facebook Censor Your Content? You Might Be Able to Sue in One State.

Image: Creative Commons.
Image: Creative Commons.

After social media tech giants Twitter and Facebook made the move to block the President of the United States, and purge and censor tens of thousands of users across the U.S., at least some Republican lawmakers are ready to take action on a state-level. New legislation is being crafted that would allow individual users to sue social media over certain restrictions.

“I drafted it in December and things have only gotten worse,” explained North Dakota State Rep. Tom Kading, the lead sponsor of the bill, told “Fox & Friends” yesterday.

“I’m frankly shocked at what’s happening to our country and censoring does not create unity, it does not help the situation of division in our country, and it does not de-escalate the situation,” Kading told Fox. “All it really does is make those who have been silenced dig in deeper and be more suspicious of what’s going on.”

“If a website comes out and selectively publishes information,” Kading noted, citing specific case law from state supreme courts, “or manipulates true information in order to create a certain desired narrative, this restrictive action can essentially amount to defamation.”

Check out the clip below to get a sense of what Kading has in mind. The big question, of course: how many lawyers are headed to North Dakota to fight this?

Written By

Harry J. Kazianis (@Grecianformula) is Editor-In-Chief of 19FortyFive and President of Rogue States Project, the think tank arm of the publication. Kazianis recently served as Senior Director of National Security Affairs at the Center for the National Interest. He also served as Executive Editor of its publishing arm, The National Interest. Kazianis has held various roles at The National Interest, including Senior Editor and Managing Editor over the last decade. Harry is a recognized expert on national security issues involving North & South Korea, China, the Asia-Pacific, Europe, and general U.S. foreign policy and national security challenges. Past Experience Kazianis previously served as part of the foreign policy team for the 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Ted Cruz. Kazianis also managed the foreign policy communications efforts of the Heritage Foundation, served as Editor-In-Chief of the Tokyo-based The Diplomat magazine, Editor of RealClearDefense, and as a WSD-Handa Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS): PACNET. Kazianis has also held foreign policy fellowships at the Potomac Foundation and the University of Nottingham. Kazianis is the author of the book The Tao of A2/AD, an exploration of China’s military capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region. He has also authored several reports on U.S. military strategy in the Asia-Pacific as well as edited and co-authored a recent report on U.S.-Japan-Vietnam trilateral cooperation. Kazianis has provided expert commentary, over 900 op-eds, and analysis for many outlets, including The Telegraph, The Wall Street Journal, Yonhap, The New York Times, Hankyoreh, The Washington Post, MSNBC, 1945, Fox News, Fox Business, CNN, USA Today, CNBC, Politico, The Financial Times, NBC, Slate, Reuters, AP, The Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, RollCall, RealClearPolitics, LA Times, Newsmax, BBC, Foreign Policy, The Hill, Fortune, Forbes, DefenseOne, Newsweek, NPR, Popular Mechanics, VOA, Yahoo News, National Security Journal and many others.

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