Obama weighs in on tech censorship. Like all dictators, he wants his views to prevail; his "truth" to rule.
Byron York:
In what way? Nearing the end of his speech, Obama gave an extraordinarily telling example of how his plan might work. "It is possible to broaden our perspectives," he said. To illustrate that, he cited a recent study by researchers who paid a group of regular Fox News watchers to watch CNN instead for a month. "These were not swing voters," Obama said. "These were hardcore Hannity-Carlson fans. And what the researchers found was that at the end of the month, people's views on certain issues, like whether voting by mail should be allowed or whether electing Joe Biden would lead to more violence against police — on some of these issues, their views had changed by 5, 8, 10 points. These people didn't suddenly turn into liberals — I'm sure they still don't like me — but at the margins, they had reshaped their perspectives in meaningful ways."
There it is. Perhaps social media companies could do something similar. Perhaps they could play the role of the good guys, CNN, in changing the views of people who watch the bad guys, Fox News. Or, to be more open about it, perhaps they could play the role of Democrats in changing the views of Republicans. And for those who believe that is precisely what social media companies are already trying to do — well, perhaps they could do even more. That is Obama's vision. "Now is the time to pick a side," he said. "We have a choice right now: Do we allow our democracy to wither, or do we make it better? That is the choice we face."
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