The Anti-Defamation League’s David Goldenberg is demanding a broad overhaul of how speech is governed on the internet, calling for both government intervention and intensified corporate censorship. In a recent appearance, Goldenberg, who heads the ADL’s Midwest operations, expressed frustration over what he sees as declining efforts by tech firms to suppress online content he deems hateful.
Citing Meta’s rollback of its fact-checking team in the United States, he argued that platforms must be forced to take action. “You have a platform like Meta that just gutted its entire fact-checking department…And so what we need to do is we need to apply pressure in a real significant way on tech platforms that they have a responsibility, that they have an absolute responsibility to check and remove hateful speech that is inciteful.”
Goldenberg advocated not just for voluntary moderation, but for legislative and regulatory measures, both at the federal and state level, that would compel platforms to act as speech enforcers. He pointed to efforts in states like California as examples of where local governments are already testing such models.
