Government

America Will Not Join Call To Stop Extremism Online, Because Republicans Like Winning Elections, I Guess

It would appear the White House thinks violent extremism is a feature, not a bug.

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Christchurch High Court (Photo by Kai Schwoerer/Getty Images)

The Christchurch Call To Action is such a freaking layup. Organized in response to the mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, it’s just a manifesto from world leaders and tech companies to combat online extremism. It’s one of those gooey international accords that doesn’t really require anybody to do anything other than say they’d like to do something.

Facebook and Twitter have already signed on. Honestly folks, if you’re proposing a plan to fight extremists and terrorists on social media and Twitter is like “sure, why not,” I promise you that your proposal is not really going to fight extremists and terrorists. A fox doesn’t refuse to attack an elephant out of benevolence. It doesn’t cost anything for the social tech giants to say that they generally care about maybe somehow stopping actual terrorists from promoting mass murder online.

But evidently it costs the Trump administration something, because the White House will not sign on to the Call. From the Washington Post:

U.S. officials said they stand “with the international community in condemning terrorist and violent extremist content online,” and support the goals of the Christchurch document. But the White House said in a statement it is “not currently in a position to join the endorsement,” which leaders from countries such as Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom are expected to sign. The decision puts the United States at odds with U.S. tech companies including Facebook and Google, which are expected to support the effort.

A day earlier, White House officials raised concerns that the document might run afoul of the First Amendment.

“We continue to be proactive in our efforts to counter terrorist content online while also continuing to respect freedom of expression and freedom of the press,” the White House said. “Further, we maintain that the best tool to defeat terrorist speech is productive speech, and thus we emphasize the importance of promoting credible, alternative narratives as the primary means by which we can defeat terrorist messaging.”

Yeah, “alternative narratives” is this White House’s primary means for doing everything.

You can read the full Call to Action here. The imposition on “governments” don’t trip any First Amendment wires. It’s all about developing new tools and developing crisis intervention protocols. Last I checked, live-streaming your mass shooting was not “protected speech.”

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Signing on would be a mere signal that the U.S. cared about stopping extremist violence from spreading through social-networking technology. Refusing to sign on sends the opposite signal, and I think that’s on purpose. The United States under Donald Trump promotes extremists, so long as they’re white. That promotion happens on the president’s Twitter feed, and it happens on so many Republicans’ Twitter feeds that Twitter is afraid of stopping it and being accused of banning Republicans.

Not signing on to this — again, mostly useless — accord only serves the purpose of signaling to Trump’s white supremacist base that he is always on their side.

Later, at least 40 percent of the country will vote for Donald Trump and wonder how I can be so sure they’re racist.

White House will not sign on to Christchurch call to stamp out online extremism amid free speech concerns [Washington Post]

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Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and a contributor at The Nation. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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