Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis slammed Republican presidential primary rival Nikki Haley’s proposal to ban anonymous social media accounts, reminding people on social media that America was founded by writers who hid their identities.
DeSantis was reacting to comments Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and U.N. ambassador, made Tuesday on Fox News.
“Antisemitism was always bubbling underneath the surface but now we’re seeing this massive exaggeration of it, but no one is talking about why,” Haley said while appearing on “The Faulkner Focus.”
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“The truth is, if you look at social media, the misinformation and the dramatic sides of social media are instigating this. It is being pushed by Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.”
“When I get into office, the first thing we have to do, social media companies have to show America their algorithms, let us see why they’re pushing what they’re pushing,” Haley continued.
“The second thing, every person on social media should be verified by their name. First of all, that’s a national security threat. When you do that, people have to stand by what they say and it gets rid of the Russian bots, the Iranian bots, and the Chinese bots, and then you’re going to get some civility when people know their name is next to what they say.”
Haley appeared to show how oblivious she is to social media, especially X (formerly Twitter).
For one thing, plenty of liberal accounts identified by named people have no problem being nasty and brutal to Republicans.
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She also failed to appreciate that many wildly popular conservative posters on X operate anonymously or once did.
That includes accounts such as Libs of Tok Tok (2.6 million followers), Catturd (2.1 million), End Wokeness (1.8 million), Wall Street Silver (1.1 Million), Defiant L’s (988,000), Titania McGrath (753,000), Right to Bear Memes (525,000), Declaration of Memes (506,000), and Comfortably Smug (293,000).
DeSantis, however, opted to give Haley a history lesson.
“You know who were anonymous writers back in the day? Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison when they wrote the Federalist Papers,” the governor posted on X.
“They were not ‘national security threats,’ nor are the many conservative Americans across the country who exercise their Constitutional right to voice their opinions without fear of being harassed or canceled by the school they go to or the company they work for.”
“Haley’s proposal to ban anonymous speech online — similar to what China recently did — is dangerous and unconstitutional,” DeSantis added. “It will be dead on arrival in my administration.”
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