Democrats Demand Social Media Users Talking Politics Disclose If They’re Not

On Mar 4, 2021

The lingering effects of “Russian influence” hysteria are still being felt. While Facebook is ending a ban on political advertising that was enacted amid moral panic about overseas influence in U.S. elections, Democrats in Congress are still pushing regulations and restrictions based on the idea that simply seeing foreign people’s speech about U.S. issues and elections is bad for feeble-minded Americans and dangerous to our democracy.

Russian bot operations undoubtedly tried to stir up mayhem and inflame partisan passions during the 2016 presidential election, but the effects of that attempted chaos-sowing are way less clear (and less common) than Democrats—incredulous that Hillary Clinton could’ve lost to Donald Trump in a fair election—liked to pretend. And apparently, this delusion is still driving Democratic policy proposals in Congress. On Wednesday, the House passed a measure to require all politics-related social media posts from non-Americans to bear a disclaimer saying as much.

The Foreign Agent Disclaimer Enhancement (FADE) Act of 2021, introduced by Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D–Va.), passed the House yesterday as part of a larger voting rights and election-related bill called the For the People Act (which only one Democrat and all Republcians in the House voted against).

The FADE Act states:

In the case of informational materials for or in the interests of a foreign principal which are transmitted or caused to be transmitted by an agent of a foreign principal by posting on an online platform, the agent shall ensure that the conspicuous statement required to be placed in such materials under this subsection is placed directly with the material posted on the platform and is not accessible only through a hyperlink or other reference to another source.

Exceptions for length may be made, but only with specific approval from the U.S. attorney general. The federal government’s top cop will also be in charge of notifying online platforms when posts don’t meet these criteria, and ordering them to take down said posts while also notifying users about their origins.

The way the law is written, anyone outside the U.S. who wants to opine online about any U.S. candidate or political issue and is not a U.S. citizen could have to disclose his identity as a “foreign principal” with every single post. That’s insane.

Spanberger and other proponents of the FADE Act—which modifies the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938—have pretended it would only apply to propaganda put out by foreign governments or state-backed agents. But under FARA, it’s not just foreign governments or political parties that are considered as “foreign principals” but any “person outside of the United States unless it is established that such person is an individual and a citizen of and domiciled within” the country.

Enforcing such a measure would require a huge investment in federal law enforcement apparatuses to monitor and investigate social media platforms.

Meanwhile, the potential for preventing or chilling all sorts of perfectly benign political speech would be huge, as would the potential for abuse by whatever party or administration is in power.

FREE MINDS

The era of the sovereign influencer. The latest Pirate Wires, a newsletter by Founders Fund’s Mike Solana, has a really interesting section on “the new class” of social media and the rise of the “sovereign influencer.” Solana posits that platforms are enabling a certain sort of “cancel-proof” and transferable social media experience:

Over the last decade, companies that focused on things like creator monetization, creator control, and certainly any kind of alternative, cancel-proof social media all generated trivial amounts of revenue by comparison to the social media giants. They still do. But companies focused on the dominance of sovereign influencers are riding the most important trend in media, while social media incumbents are almost incapable of capitalizing on the trend without disrupting their own dominance. In the technology industry, the dynamic at work here is legendary. A decade ago, when I first learned “Silicon Valley” was an actual place, rather than a metaphor, and began my journey with Founders Fund, I picked up a book called the Innovator’s Dilemma. Long, fascinating story short: large and powerful companies are pressured by the market into obsessive focus on their core business, even when leadership is cognizant of new and important technology trends just outside their company’s core competency. A few of these trends become tidal waves that reshape our world, and smaller companies better equipped to capitalize on new trends ride the waves to new and more significant markets. By the time a dominant incumbent fully commits to the new game in town — because it finally has to — it’s too late. Congratulations, you’re the foremost purveyor of film in a world of digital photography.

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