The Biden administration reinforces its ranks with what some reports see as yet more ardent censorship advocates.
This time it’s Andy Volosky, whose “claim to fame” thus far has been to wholeheartedly support the banning of President Donald Trump by former Twitter (while Trump was still president).
Unsurprisingly, his other efforts are advocating for even stricter online censorship (“content moderation”) than what social platforms have been doing for almost a decade now.
Volosky has now been given the right to serve this administration as deputy director of platforms for the White House’s Office of Digital Strategy. Serving the people, critically minded cynics might remark, would probably require a different mindset and a different set of skills.
But depending on how long the current administration manages to hang on to power, Volosky may not be on in the new job for long.
George Washington University Professor Jonathan Turley makes a note of this appointment as he explores what might turn out to be one of the nadirs in US history where freedom of expression is concerned.
Turley goes as far as to assert that President Biden is “the most anti-free speech president since John Adams.” This is a bold statement, not least because more than two centuries of “enlightenment” in many areas of politics in the US separate the two figures.
But, not when it comes to progress in the realm of free speech, according to the legal scholar. And moves like bringing Volosky in certainly do little to discredit these claims.
Hellbound and Down 