Michael McConnell

John Hinderaker joined me today to co-host this special edition of the show. Yesterday Facebook announced the creation of a 20-member oversight board that some media accounts describe as a “supreme court” to advise and in some cases rule on what kind of material can be taken down from the popular global site. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been talking about this idea for a while, saying saying in 2018 that he wanted to create “some sort of structure, almost like a Supreme Court” for users to get a final judgment call on what is acceptable speech.

Two members of the oversight board caught our immediate attention as both are long time friend and readers of Power Line: Michael McConnell of Stanford Law School, who will co-chair the oversight board along with Helle Thorning-Schmidt, a former prime minister of Denmark; and John Samples of the Cato Institute. And we were fortunate to get both Mike and John to join us today to walk through how the oversight board will operate, and what kind of free speech law and principles should apply to a global platform.

John Samples

But wait—there’s more! In the middle of our taping the news broke that the Justice Department had dropped the prosecution of General Michael Flynn, despite Flynn having pled guilty to charges way back in 2017. Our own Scott Johnson, who has been following the case and updating readers on a daily basis as the Justice Department case against Flynn unraveled, joins us at the end to give his reaction and sum up this scandalous episode, offering some speculation about what might be the next shoe to drop.

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