For years now, I have called on Congress and the FCC to regulate social media of all kinds, including videos, podcasts, and blog sites. As it is, anyone can post or share almost anything without being held accountable. Unfortunately, my efforts have fallen on deaf ears; meanwhile, harmful content, whether accurate or fabricated, continues to go unchecked.
Those who disagree with me say that regulating social media content is tantamount to censorship and would violate our First Amendment right to free speech. But the First Amendment doesn’t give us the right to say anything that pops into our head, and that’s something which regulated broadcasters have understood for nearly a hundred years, either out of a sense of decency, or because they feared losing their license (or both).
In making an argument for regulating social media, one can easily point to the more sensational examples, such as cyberbullying that leads to suicide, and hate speech that leads to political violence. Absent government regulation, however, the best we can hope for is to put pressure on or shame content providers into removing their most egregious posts. Earlier this month, the public was outraged when Rep. Max Miller’s divorce attorney “accidentally” posted nude photos of the Congressman’s allegedly abused two-year-old daughter. In that case, the image was quickly deleted, but truth be told, the removal probably had more to do with divorce negotiations than human decency. In other instances, content has been removed under threat of civil litigation for defamation, or when a business or individual wants to minimize bad PR. Regardless of the motives, though, I’m thankful that at least some harmful social media content is being removed. At the same time, I am also concerned about the dangers of removing other kinds of content, especially when it comes to political candidates who attempt to hide their real beliefs by deleting past statements in order to change their image. And that brings me to Abdul El-Sayed.
El-Sayed is Michigan’s liberal Democratic candidate for United States Senate, and lately, he’s been busy deleting many of his socialist posts so that he will appear more centrist for the November general election. Among the videos and posts El-Sayed has removed are his calls for defunding the police, banning fireworks, banning pro football, abolishing prisons, and replacing the Second Amendment right to bear arms with a constitutional right to health care.
According to a report by CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski, El-Sayed claims that his old videos and posts do not reflect his current views. His campaign then referred Kaczynski to several social media posts from last year, which show his recent support for gun rights, fireworks, police, and every other thing that he previously railed against. These kinds of content revisions are as potentially harmful to our democracy as anything created by Artificial Intelligence because millions of people may base their vote on the candidate’s revised political views (with which they agree), rather than the candidate’s actual views (which they oppose).
Republicans can talk all they want about stolen elections, but there’s no proof that any state or federal election has ever been won or lost because of voter fraud. On the other hand, I believe that candidates who delete, then deliberately alter their social media posts in order to secure votes are guilty of vote tampering, and that CAN lead to a stolen election. Unfortunately, there’s no law against this kind of fraud, which continues to thrive because its victims don’t know what’s been done to them until after all the votes have been counted.
Talk about late returns.
August 18, 2026 @ 8:08 pm
Deleting Social Media Content Can Be Bad
For years now, I have called on Congress and the FCC to regulate social media of all kinds, including videos, podcasts, and blog sites. As it is, anyone can post or share almost anything without being held accountable. Unfortunately, my efforts have fallen on deaf ears; meanwhile, harmful content, whether accurate or fabricated, continues to go unchecked.
Those who disagree with me say that regulating social media content is tantamount to censorship and would violate our First Amendment right to free speech. But the First Amendment doesn’t give us the right to say anything that pops into our head, and that’s something which regulated broadcasters have understood for nearly a hundred years, either out of a sense of decency, or because they feared losing their license (or both).
In making an argument for regulating social media, one can easily point to the more sensational examples, such as cyberbullying that leads to suicide, and hate speech that leads to political violence. Absent government regulation, however, the best we can hope for is to put pressure on or shame content providers into removing their most egregious posts. Earlier this month, the public was outraged when Rep. Max Miller’s divorce attorney “accidentally” posted nude photos of the Congressman’s allegedly abused two-year-old daughter. In that case, the image was quickly deleted, but truth be told, the removal probably had more to do with divorce negotiations than human decency. In other instances, content has been removed under threat of civil litigation for defamation, or when a business or individual wants to minimize bad PR. Regardless of the motives, though, I’m thankful that at least some harmful social media content is being removed. At the same time, I am also concerned about the dangers of removing other kinds of content, especially when it comes to political candidates who attempt to hide their real beliefs by deleting past statements in order to change their image. And that brings me to Abdul El-Sayed.
El-Sayed is Michigan’s liberal Democratic candidate for United States Senate, and lately, he’s been busy deleting many of his socialist posts so that he will appear more centrist for the November general election. Among the videos and posts El-Sayed has removed are his calls for defunding the police, banning fireworks, banning pro football, abolishing prisons, and replacing the Second Amendment right to bear arms with a constitutional right to health care.
According to a report by CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski, El-Sayed claims that his old videos and posts do not reflect his current views. His campaign then referred Kaczynski to several social media posts from last year, which show his recent support for gun rights, fireworks, police, and every other thing that he previously railed against. These kinds of content revisions are as potentially harmful to our democracy as anything created by Artificial Intelligence because millions of people may base their vote on the candidate’s revised political views (with which they agree), rather than the candidate’s actual views (which they oppose).
Republicans can talk all they want about stolen elections, but there’s no proof that any state or federal election has ever been won or lost because of voter fraud. On the other hand, I believe that candidates who delete, then deliberately alter their social media posts in order to secure votes are guilty of vote tampering, and that CAN lead to a stolen election. Unfortunately, there’s no law against this kind of fraud, which continues to thrive because its victims don’t know what’s been done to them until after all the votes have been counted.
Talk about late returns.