As the Biden administration counters foreign disinformation, it faces growing calls to impose stricter restrictions on social media and online platforms. While tech companies should do more to fight disinformation, the administration should not require tech companies to censor state-sponsored content from targeted countries. Instead, the administration should enable tech companies to monitor and remove false and misleading news from their platforms.
Disinformation from both domestic and foreign sources has become an increasingly challenging issue for U.S. politics since the 2016 presidential election. Such concerns range from false claims by domestic users to sophisticated propaganda campaigns by state-controlled foreign outlets like Russia Today (RT) and China Global Television Network (CGTN). Against this backdrop, policymakers increasingly advocate mandatory requirements on tech companies to monitor and censor state-sponsored content from China, Russia, and other authoritarian countries.
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