BEWARE THE DISINFORMATION POLICE
By Amy Waychoff
Beware the “Disinformation” Police
There is a bill being considered in Annapolis that would severely constrain our First Amendment rights to question the process or results of elections. In HB 333, “Election Disinformation on Large Social Media Platforms and Influence Related to Voting,” “election disinformation” means incorrect or misleading information about election procedures, election results, or voting rights in the State. The bill requires each large social media platform to make reasonable efforts to prevent, detect, and remove accounts and posts that communicate “election disinformation” in the State. The social media platform must report — within 48 hours — very specific information about the problematic posts to the State Board of Elections. Failure to do so would incur fines ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 per offense.
A person who objects to non-citizens voting could be labeled as opposing voting rights. A person who questions the vote count could be said to be spreading disinformation about an election result.
The good news about this pernicious bill is that, thus far, it is still stuck in the Elections Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee. Please send emails in opposition to this bill to all members of the committee. If you live in the same legislative district as the sponsor of this bill, Jheannelle Wilkins (LD 20), or committee members Mireku-North (LD 14), Palakovich-Carr (LD 17), Joe Vogel (LD 17), Greg Sims (LD 39), and Chao Wu (LD 9A), please highlight that fact in your email:
<[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>,
<[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>
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Amy Waychoff is a Member of the Montgomery County Republican Central Committee and Chair of the Legislation Tracking Task Force.