Senator Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign on Wednesday released a plan to combat “digital disinformation” in a bid to “push for new laws that impose tough civil and criminal penalties” for disseminating false information related to U.S. elections.
“Disinformation erodes our democracy, and Democrats must have a plan to address it,” she details in a Medium post.
Warren also claimed that President Donald Trump “welcomed foreign interference in our elections, inviting interference from a host of countries that have an interest in the outcome, including Iran and China.”
She adds that it’s not enough to “make vague statements condemning fraudulent attacks on opponents or efforts to suppress the vote.”
“Campaigns need to make clear that disinformation has no place in our campaigns, and that we will disavow supporters who embrace it and act quickly to stop its spread,” she writes.
While calling on big tech to do more to combat what she describes as disinformation, she also advocated for more federal government action.
Warren wrote that “civil and criminal penalties for knowingly disseminating false information about when and how to vote in U.S. elections” should be developed by Congress or, presumably by a Warren administration.
Critics are calling her plan “fascist” censorship.
“With her chances of becoming president having assumed the trajectory of a plane crash, she has decided to go full fascist because that’s who she is and has always been,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Wednesday, calling her plan “full fascist.”
“This very same person is threatening to send you to prison for telling tall tales. The most florid liar in the race, someone who the New York Times once euphemistically described as a ‘gifted storyteller,’ says she’s going to criminalize lying,” he said.
The plan was also criticized by others including U.S. lawmakers. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) , “Would this apply to the tall tales you tell and those networks allow?”