Having solved all other problems, House Democrats can get back to the very important business of deciding which news sources are acceptable for Americans’ news consumption and which are not.
And rest assured: Reps. Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney take this responsibility very, very seriously.
That’s why they’re going after AT&T:
These same networks also have been key vectors of spreading misinformation related to the pandemic. A media watchdog found over 250 cases of COVID-19 misinformation on Fox News in just one five-day period, 9 and economists demonstrated that Fox News had a demonstrable impact on non-compliance with public health guidelines.10 One online platform suspended and demonetized OANN’s channel online because it was spreading COVID-19 misinformation.11 Newsmax has amplified allegations that members of the Chinese Communist Party helped to develop the COVID-19 vaccine.
Sadly, these facts are not new. One popular television show [“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”] aired a segment about OANN last April that included a dire warning: “the kind of misinformation [OANN] is spewing right now could end up getting people killed.”
Yet, to our knowledge, the cable, satellite, and over-the-top companies that disseminate these media outlets to American viewers have done nothing in response to the misinformation aired by these outlets. AT&T currently carries Fox News, Newsmax, and OANN on U-verse, DirecTV, and AT&T TV. 15 As a company that serves 17 million Americans,16 AT&T plays a major role in the spread of dangerous misinformation that enabled the insurrection of January 6th and hinders our public health response to the current pandemic.
So it’s AT&T’s fault that people stormed the Capitol on January 6. It’s AT&T’s fault that some people are skeptical about the effectiveness of the COVID19 vaccine. Got it.
Two Democratic members of Congress are pressuring the CEOs of the country's major TV providers to essentially purge the news networks these Members don't like, on the basis of the alleged danger posed by "misinformation and conspiracy theories" https://t.co/QyNyy0dPdX pic.twitter.com/DcxX68sLNt
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) February 22, 2021
Now these members of Congress want massive corporations like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast to apply some newfound "moral or ethical principles… related to journalistic integrity" in determining what content they allow to be disseminated on their services. What a hoot! pic.twitter.com/s004glbIte
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) February 22, 2021
So many of the things being done in the name of the public good are actually terrible for the public.
That's unsettling.
— David Bernardi ?? (@david_bernardi) February 22, 2021
To say the least.
A substantially more egregious assault on the free press than anything Trump did, and yet it’ll pass with barely a whisper. https://t.co/36EqO4csaF
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 23, 2021
And I don’t say this flippantly. I thought Trump did a lot of bad stuff when it came to his handling of the press.
None of it was a harangue on federal government letterhead demanding to know why a private business was continuing to carry outlets he didn’t like.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 23, 2021
Awfully difficult to take guys like Jim Acosta and Brian Stelter seriously about attacks on the free press when they don’t seem to have the time or energy to get concerned about something like this.mi
This is authoritarian insanity https://t.co/UUKlg5RxLy
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) February 23, 2021
Frightening beyond words.
— Cameron Ohnysty (@cohnysty) February 23, 2021
At what point does it stop?
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