Journalist Zaid Jilani discussed on Monday a Pew Research Center study that showed views on free speech and offensive speech in the U.S. have become more partisan in the past three years.
During an interview with Hill.TV’s “Rising,” Jilani cited the study from earlier this month, which determined that a larger percentage of Democrats said offensive online content is not being taken seriously enough in 2020 than in 2017.
Similarly, a greater portion of Republicans said offensive content online is being taken too seriously this year than in 2017.
“I think a lot of that has to do with a kind of knee-jerk reaction to the election of Donald Trump,” Jilani said.
Jilani said the theory that social media helped get President Trump elected led social media companies to feel “pressure from the government to start pulling down content that maybe could promote Trump, promote right-wing content, promote offensive content, racism, sexism, homophobia, so on and so forth.”
“I think a lot of this has to do with the idea, a feeling among a lot of Democrats I think that if they are able to kind of control the game and kind of decide what people are allowed to say, that they can kind of fix how people think,” he added.
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