JD Vance pivots to Facebook ‘censorship’ to avoid questions on January 6th.

The question of whether Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) will challenge the 2024 election results quickly devolved into a fight against censorship and Big Tech during his debate with Democratic nominee Gov. Tim Waltz (D-Minn.) .

“You said you would not certify the last presidential election and would have asked the states to submit replacement electors. It is called unconstitutional and illegal.” host Norah O’Donnell asked Vance. “Will you challenge the election results again this year, even if all governors certify the results?”

What did Vance say instead of the threat to democracy that Democrats decry? really What is worrisome is the threat of “big tech companies silencing their fellow citizens.” Vance said Harris wants to “censor people who engage in misinformation,” which he said is “a much bigger threat to democracy than anything we’ve seen” in the last four or four decades.

“Kamala Harris is engaging in censorship on an industrial scale,” Vance said, calling it a much bigger threat than former President Donald Trump telling people to protest “peacefully” during the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. added. Vance compared Trump’s refusal to believe the 2020 election results to Democrats’ concerns about Russian foreign interference in the 2016 election, and they noted that Facebook ad purchases by foreign agents contributed to Trump’s loss to Hillary Clinton. (A Republican-led Senate committee concluded in 2020 that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 election to benefit candidate Trump.)

Walz countered, calling Vance’s case “revisionist history” and saying “January 6 was not a Facebook ad.”

Vance was clearly alluding to events that followed. Murthy v. MissouriThe Supreme Court ruling came out early this year. The case addressed accusations that the Biden administration has forced tech platforms to impose censorship. The justices ruled in favor of the Biden administration based on standing, but they also questioned whether there was a meaningful connection between government support for platforms like Facebook and those platforms’ subsequent moderation decisions.

Walz attempted to bring the debate back to the original question. “Did he lose the 2020 election?” he asked Vance.

“Tim, I’m focused on the future.” Vance answered. “Has Kamala Harris censored Americans from speaking their minds after the 2020 Covid situation?”

“There’s really no answer to that,” Walz said.

“That’s a really ridiculous answer to not talk about censorship.” Vance retorted.

At another point, Vance accused Harris of wanting to “use the power of government and big tech to keep people from saying what they think.” Referring to recent criticism of the Supreme Court, President Trump suggested that “we should put some people in jail for the way they talk about our judges and justices.”

Walz responded to Vance with the widely used but misleading claim that “shooting up a crowded theater” is the Supreme Court test for unprotected speech. Vance did not dispute the premise, but added, “You guys wanted to kick people off Facebook who say toddlers shouldn’t wear masks. Fires don’t start in crowded theaters. “It’s the right of every American to criticize government policies.”

“I don’t run Facebook,” Walz said. “This is not a debate, this is not something that happens anywhere else but in Donald Trump’s world.”