Democratic Senator Floats Social Media Censorship as Third Bank Collapses, Lawmaker Says
As quivers of fear streak across America in the aftermath of bank collapses, a Republican congressman said that at least one Democrat believes censorship should be one part of the policy response.
“Just got off of a zoom meeting with Fed, Treasury, FDIC, House, and Senate. A Democrat Senator essentially asked whether there was a program in place to censor information on social media that could lead to a run on the banks,” Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky posted on Twitter.
Massie later noted that the response was “we will get back to you on that,” without identifying who said it.
Just got off of a zoom meeting with Fed, Treasury, FDIC, House, and Senate.
A Democrat Senator essentially asked whether there was a program in place to censor information on social media that could lead to a run on the banks.
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) March 13, 2023
“We will get back to you on that.”
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) March 13, 2023
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On Friday, Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, two days after Silvergate — a major lender for the cryptocurrency sector — announced it was going to voluntarily liquidate and cease operations, according to CNBC.
On Sunday, Signature Bank was closed in what was the third-largest failure in American banking history. Silicon Valley Bank was the second-largest collapse.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took over Signature, which had $110.36 billion in assets and $88.59 billion in deposits as of December 2022, the New York State Department of Financial Services said, according to Reuters, which noted Signature also had strong ties to the cryptocurrency sector.
Massie and others debated any effort to stifle social media from discussing the banking sector’s issues.
What about yelling fire in a theater that’s on fire?
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) March 13, 2023
On a briefing with Biden Under Secretary of the Treasury Nellie Liang regarding the SVB BAILOUT they are working towards and a member asked if the they were reaching out to Facebook and Twitter to monitor misinformation and “bad actors.”
And this administration AGAIN just… https://t.co/rJbG5gR36G
— Rep. Lauren Boebert (@RepBoebert) March 13, 2023
Rep. Massie: DHS efforts are already underway to add censorship of “financial misinformation” to CISA’s portfolio of “critical infrastructure” domains it can classify tweets as a cyber attack on, & thus censor. See, e.g., link below:https://t.co/M1FzQuUtv8 https://t.co/dPJQdpd7sf pic.twitter.com/37sy70744K
— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) March 13, 2023
One thing about social media is that it lets VCs who lost money in a bank run go around screaming about how everyone is going to lose faith in all banks, everywhere, unless there’s a bailout.
Another thing about social media is that you can see that this is not really happening
— Will Stancil (@whstancil) March 12, 2023
Stocks plunged Monday with the extent of the ripples from the closures uncertain.
“When a step (is taken) this big, this quickly, your first thought is crisis averted. But your second thought is, how big was that crisis, how big were the risks that this step had to be taken?” said Rick Meckler, a partner at Cherry Lane Investment, according to Reuters.
“Can you assure Americans that there won’t be a ripple effect? Do you expect other banks to fail?”
BIDEN: *shuts door* pic.twitter.com/CNuUhPbJAi
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 13, 2023
Reuters noted that as of mid-morning Monday, First Republic Bank’s share price dropped 65.1 percent; Western Alliance Bancorp dropped 75.9 percent; PacWest Bancorp dropped 41 percent; and Charles Schwab dropped 19 percent, with trading halted frequently due to volatility.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
