Is Freedom of Speech Being Infringed? Oppositions to the Espionage Prevention and Education Act Think So

spmedia7
Feb 21
2 min read

By Vega S. Sarma

Amidst cheering in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence over the passage of the Espionage Prevention and Education Act, fears among the minority opposition about infringements on the First Amendment stew.

The bill focuses on implementing AI on social media platforms to regulate potentially indoctrinating content from foreign countries. The AI system automatically runs the content through guidelines set by the United States government, flagging and temporarily removing it when it fails testing. The content will then be reviewed by the Department of Homeland Security to determine further action. In an exclusive interview with Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), he elaborates further on his refusal to approve the document, making the bold claim that the values of this act may go against the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Wyden argues that this act doesn’t attempt to protect “rights to freedom of press” and only “encourages people not to watch content that is not American.” The bill specifically targets content from foreign users and leaves the classification of indoctrinating content to the DHS. Wyden elaborates that this delegation to the DHS may cause issues regarding censorship, already believing that “there’s a little too much censorship in terms of not allowing Americans to see content that’s unpatriotic.” Even with amendments from his fellow Democratic Senators to alleviate the removal of content to the flagging of content, he claims that it still causes many American users to “think that they shouldn’t engage with that content.”

With the bill passing the Senate on February 20th, the government will begin implementing these AI systems and may alter millions of users’ algorithms to prevent restricted content that is indoctrinating, according to the DHS’s standards. The fears Wyden and others opposing must rely on time to inform both them and the country of the success of this act.