John Kerry suggests First Amendment stands as an obstacle to building 'Consensus' on certain issues

Former secretary of state, senator and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry made waves last week when the World Economic Forum came to New York on the occasion of the United Nations General Assembly, as they acknowledged, to host the Sustainable Development Impact Meetings.

Kerry implied that the First Amendment of the Constitution is proving to be an impediment to efforts by the government to overcome the obstacles of misinformation and disinformation in reaching consensus on issues such as climate change, according to The New York Sun.  

“If people only go to one source and the source they go to is sick and … has an agenda, and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to our ability to just, you know, hammer it out of existence,” Mr. Kerry warned at the WEF meeting on sustainable development.

Another target for Kerry was social media: “Anguish over social media is just growing and growing and growing, and it’s part of our problem — particularly in democracies — in terms of building consensus around any issue,” he says. “It’s really hard to govern today.”

“But, look, if people go to only one source, and the source they go to is sick and has an agenda, and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to hammer it out of existence,” Kerry said.

“What we need is to win the ground, win the right to govern by hopefully winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to implement change,” he added, while acknowledging that different people have other visions for change.

Kerry’s remarks “caused an avalanche of criticism online, with many accusing progressives of openly supporting censorship,” according to National Review, which added that much mis- and dis-information has come from Kerry's allies in government and media: 

"Online censorship under the guise of 'disinformation' continues to be a hot-button issue four years after Twitter and Facebook censored the New York Post‘s reporting on the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop archive, leading up to the 2020 presidential election."