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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – Many Republican lawmakers have criticized governors’ emergency restrictions since the start of the coronavirus outbreak. Now that most legislatures are back in session, a new kind of pushback is taking root: disinformation.
In their own comments or by inviting skeptics to testify in legislative hearings, some lawmakers in GOP states are using their platform to promote false information about the virus, the measures needed to limit its spread, and the vaccines that will be released in the near future. pandemic country.
In some cases, inaccuracies have been the subject of violent reactions or even been censored online. This has raised difficult questions about how to vigorously tackle potentially dangerous disinformation on the part of elected officials or during legislative hearings while protecting freedom of expression and people’s access to government.
Last week YouTube withdrew video of committee testimony at the Ohio home after a witness mistakenly claimed COVID-19 does not kill children. The platform said the video violates its community’s standards against the spread of disinformation.
Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology project, said YouTube had gone too far.
“When we talk about testimony that took place in a public hearing, the best answer would be counter-speech, perhaps in the form of fact-checking or labeling, rather than this attempt to empty it out of the hole. from memory, ”Wizner said.
But opposing voices are not always allowed in committee hearings.
In Michigan, for example, the House oversight committee did not include state health officials or other virus experts in a discussion of an extended hiatus on contact sports for young people. ordered by Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
It starred Jayme McElvany, a skeptical virus who also published articles on the QAnon conspiracy and the unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud by former President Donald Trump. Founder of a group called Let Them Play, McElvany questioned the masks’ mandates and the science behind the state’s COVID-19 data in a legislative hearing that did not feature any witnesses from the other side.
Wizner said such imbalances need to be highlighted, not removed.
“People need to know that this is what is happening with local government,” he said. When audiences are posted online, YouTube’s owner Google has plenty of tools to flag questionable information and direct people to the facts, Wizner said.
In Tennessee, a Republican lawmaker is pushing for legislation that would ban most government agencies from requiring anyone to be vaccinated against COVID-19, which is nowhere a mandate. Representative Bud Hulsey attempted to gain support by downplaying the severity of the illness.
During his testimony, he ticked off selective statistics that COVID-19 has a lower death rate in children and falsely alleged that vaccines could cause genetic changes.
Hulsey has faced a crackdown from another Republican, Republican Sabi Kumar, a surgeon who has been a rare GOP advocate for wearing an appropriate mask while lawmakers gather at the Tennessee Capitol.
“What concerns me is that (the bill) creates an anti-vaccine stance,” Kumar said.
Kumar pointed out that vaccines have saved countless lives over the centuries and repeatedly verified Hulsey by pointing out that vaccines do not alter a person’s DNA.
Hulsey was not convinced.
“People have seen governments across the country doing things that have never happened in US history, and that scares them,” he said. “They have every right to be afraid.”
His bill came out of a subcommittee of the House.
In Alaska, Governor Mike Dunleavy fights what he called a pattern of misrepresentation by State Senator Lora Reinbold, a fellow Republican, saying he would no longer send members of his administration to his Senate Judiciary Committee.
In a scathing February 18 letter referring to his Facebook posts, Dunleavy accused Reinbold of distorting the state’s COVID-19 response and of misleading the public.
“The disinformation must stop,” the governor wrote.
Reinbold sharply criticized Dunleavy for issuing disaster declarations when the Legislature was not in session. She used her committee to amplify the voices of those who question the effectiveness of the masks and the effects of the government’s emergency response.
On social media, she called the Dunleavy administration “savage” because of “these experimental vaccines.” During a hearing in early February, Reinbold questioned the extent to which the administration had suspended regulations during the pandemic.
“It’s almost like martial law,” she said.
The governor said that although he tried to relax rules on businesses such as waiving fees, he never imposed martial law or forced Alaskans to get vaccinated. Reinbold called the governor’s criticism of her unfounded.
“Some call it ‘disinformation’ information that they don’t agree with or want to hear,” Reinbold said by email.
The dust prompted the Speaker of the Senate to intervene, who said he expected his committees to provide a “balanced approach.”
In Idaho, Representative Heather Scott opened the legislative session in January saying, “The pandemic is over. She said the more than 1,600 COVID-19 deaths in Idaho at that time represented “nowhere near a pandemic.”
The average number of daily COVID-19 cases is declining in Idaho, but the death toll has increased.
During a Zoom live forum with voters in mid-February, Scott slammed the National Governors Association, which released a statement last year. with tips to combat disinformation about the virus. She alleged that the group was led by “globalists” at the World Economic Forum and that “they are the ones who brought out COVID.” The term “globalists” is widely regarded as an anti-Semitic insult.
Scott did not immediately respond to a message asking for clarification on what she meant.
Several of those spreading false information about viruses in legislatures have also backed Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
In Virginia, Republican Del. Dave LaRock, who attended the Trump rally in Washington, DC, which preceded the attack on the United States Capitol, warned a State House health committee in late January that COVID-19 vaccines could not be trusted. He said they were particularly risky for several communities, including the elderly and people of color.
Democrat Del. Cia Price, who is black, called LaRock’s misrepresentation “just dangerous.”
“There is a legitimate hesitation about vaccines in the communities that the gentleman has listed, but real and factual information is essential, not to fan the flames which are based on historical events,” she said. declared.
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Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska. Associated Press editors David Eggert in Lansing, Michigan; Kimberlee Kruesi in Nashville, Tennessee; Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey; Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Virginia; and Keith Ridler of Boise, Idaho, contributed to this report.
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