Hillary Clinton called for a government crackdown on social media and issued a chilling warning that leaders could “lose control” if they don’t take serious action to censor digital content.
The former secretary of state spoke to CNN host Michael Smerconish on Saturday and called on the federal government to emulate states like California and New York and exert more control over social media.
“We need national action and unfortunately our Congress has not performed well when it comes to addressing these threats to our children,” Clinton said.
Clinton raised the issue in the context of more scrutiny of what children experience on social media and becoming addicted to content on major platforms.
Clinton spoke with CNN host Michael Smerconish on Saturday and called on the federal government to exert more control over social media
She called for the repeal of Article 230 of the Communications Act, which prevents online platforms from being held liable for content posted by users on their platforms.
That legal exclusion, she argued, was an “overly simplistic view” that did not take into account the dangers of social media.
‘[I]”If the platforms, whether it’s Facebook or Twitter/X or Instagram or TikTok, whatever they are, don’t moderate and monitor the content, we lose total control,” she said.
Clinton said her proposed reforms would help protect children.
‘It’s not just the social and psychological consequences, it’s real damage. It’s child pornography and threats of violence, things that are terribly dangerous,” she said.
Clinton said that if legal protections were removed, social platforms would spend more time and money monitoring their own content.
“We need guardrails, we need regulations,” she said.
The former failed presidential candidate spoke about her new book to warn of many of the dangers occurring in communities across the country.
In September, Clinton called for more controls on online activities
She conceded that many of her proposed changes would require Democrats to gain more power in the federal government so they could focus their attention on issues she cared about.
“Hopefully the election will go in the right direction, the fever will be broken and we can go back and try to get our families and communities on the right track,” she said.
Since first losing her lifelong dream of becoming the first female president of the United States to former President Donald Trump in the 2016 election, Clinton has blamed the rise of “disinformation” and “fake news” for convincing voters not to trust her. .
In September, Clinton called for greater scrutiny of online activities, especially against Americans paid by foreign countries to spread online propaganda.
“We are just at the beginning of understanding the whole iceberg here,” she said, warning the Russians to deploy “more sophisticated” operations to influence the United States.
Clinton suggested during an interview on MSNBC that the US government prosecute Americans for sharing information and propaganda on behalf of foreign governments.
“I also think there are Americans who engage in this type of propaganda and whether they should be prosecuted civilly or in some cases criminally would be a better deterrent,” she said.