The Arizona Secretary of State’s Office and the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office have been exposed as doing their best to team up with social media companies, non-profits, as well as the US government to advance online censorship.
This, yet another case of “cooperation” (aka, collusion) between government and private entities to stifle speech disapproved of by federal and some state authorities has emerged from several public records, brought to the public’s attention by the Gavel Project.
The official purpose of several initiatives was to counter “misinformation” using monitoring and reporting whatever the two offices decided qualified; another was to censor content on social platforms, while plans also included restricting discourse to the point of banning users from county-run accounts.
“Online harassment” was another target, and Maricopa County took it upon itself to “identify” – and then report to law enforcement.
One striking example of the mindset behind all this is a draft of a speech County Recorder Stephen Richer delivered to Maricopa Community Colleges.
As reports note, Richer is hoping to be reelected this year, while back in September 2021, he complained that “lies and disinformation” are undermining “the entire election system.”
“And it is in this respect, that the Constitution today is in some ways a thorn in the side of my office. Specifically the First Amendment,” Richer said – before declaring himself “a huge fan of the Constitution.”
When his office was earlier in the month asked to, essentially, “make it make sense” – they didn’t, stating only that Richer “stands by his speech (…) especially the part where he says he’s ‘a huge fan of the Constitution’.”
Hellbound and Down 