Carl M. Cannon, here:
But the most glaring gap is between conservatives and liberals, i.e., between Republicans and Democrats. On the issue of free expression, at least, Republicans are not the authoritarian party. That distinction belongs to the Democrats, the party launched by Thomas Jefferson — the Founding Father who famously said that if he were forced to choose between “a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” ...
If Republicans’ aversion to censorship was transactional, they would have identified Democratic-friendly misinformation for removal. But they didn’t. “Regardless of the partisan slant of the content, Democrats are more likely to support the removal of content, while Republicans are more likely to oppose removing content,” the study noted.
It was Democrats who more often employed situational ethics, giving a pass to misinformation that helped their side. Most Republicans didn’t differentiate based on which way the false headline cut.
