Significant majority want FBI's social media interactions investigated

(AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Are the Twitter Files having any impact on public opinion regarding government censorship of speech? We’ve been covering these revelations from multiple independent journalists as they’ve shown up on Twitter. Each one has been more damning than the one preceding it. But we’ve been forced to wonder just how widely this information manages to reach the public. Joe Biden’s loyal stenographers in the mainstream media have continued to either ignore the story or treat it with a brief “nothing to see here” response. But despite their best efforts, a new poll from Rasmussen Reports suggests that the public has indeed been paying attention and they’re not happy. In fact, more than 60 percent of respondents said that they believe the FBI should be investigated to determine if the government was involved in censoring information and opinions from American citizens.

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Revelations of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s involvement in social media censorship have raised voter concerns.

A new national telephone and online survey by Rasmussen Reports and Miranda Devine’s Laptop From Hell finds that 63% of Likely U.S. Voters believe Congress should investigate whether the FBI was involved in censoring information on social media sites. Only 22% oppose such an investigation, while 15% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Twitter has released files showing the FBI’s communications with the popular social media platform. Last week, Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, who is set to take over as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, voiced “serious concerns about how and why tech companies suppress, silence, or reduce the reach of certain political speech and speakers.”

The same percentage (63%) said that it was likely that the FBI pushed social media platforms to “suppress, silence, or reduce the reach of certain political speech and speakers.” Nearly half (43%) described that possibility as “very likely.”

The wording of that question is important because silencing political speech by citizens is the essential definition of censorship and a direct betrayal of the First Amendment. Just yesterday, Katie Pavlich asked if the Twitter Files had revealed an impeachable offense for Joe Biden. I would say that a very strong argument in favor of that idea has been building for a couple of weeks.

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To be clear, I still don’t believe that a significant percentage of the rank-and-file agents in the FBI are corrupt political actors. (Or at least I hope and pray that’s not the case.) Most of them very likely just get their assignments from their higher-ups and go about their investigations accordingly. I’m more inclined to agree with Roger Stone’s assessment of the situation when he said that there is probably “a group of politicized thugs at the top of the FBI who are using the FBI … as Joe Biden‘s personal Gestapo.”

That may be harsh language, but it’s hard to argue the point. We’ve seen too many caravans of armed agents showing up at the homes of people perceived to be opposed to Joe Biden’s policies or somehow aligned with Donald Trump. They’ve been kicking in doors before the sun rises using no-knock warrants of dubious merit. And this is happening while other obviously bad actors go about their business unmolested, provided they toe the White House line.

But those agents didn’t all independently wake up one day and say, ‘hey, let’s round up a posse and go lock up somebody’s pastor.’ Those orders had to have come down from the senior ranks of the Bureau. Yes, it would be nice if more agents followed their conscience and refused to engage in thuggery, but we’re asking a lot of someone if we call on them to abandon a career with the Bureau on principles when new leadership may be coming along in a couple of years.

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This poll should at least offer us some encouragement, while not providing an immediate path to relief. I seriously doubt that any amount of public pressure will shame Biden or anyone at the Justice Department into cleaning up their act or admitting wrongdoing. But if the only remedy to the situation will be found at the ballot box, so be it.

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Ed Morrissey 10:00 PM | November 22, 2024
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