During a Tuesday, November 14 appearance on Fox News, 2024 GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Haley made a proposal that has been drawing a great deal of vehement criticism online: abolishing anonymous social media accounts.
The former South Carolina governor and ex-U.S. ambassador to the United Nations described anonymous social media accounts as a “national security threat” and proposed that platforms like X, formerly Twitter, and Facebook be required to verify the identities of all users.
“When I get into office,” Haley told Fox News, “the first thing we have to do — social media companies, they have to show America their algorithm. Let us see why they’re pushing what they’re pushing.”
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Haley argued that her proposal, if carried out, would promote greater “civility” online. But her critics slammed it as a recipe for authoritarianism.
One of those critics was far-right Turning Point USA leader Charlie Kirk, a Donald Trump loyalist.
Kirk, on Twitter, posted, “Nikki Haley says ‘every person on social media should be verified by name’ for the sake of ‘national security.’ Nice try, Nikki. Anonymous speech is a core part of free speech — which the founders would know, since many of them (including Alexander Hamilton and James Madison) wrote anonymously.”
MAGA Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, who is running against Nikki in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, tweeted, “@NikkiHaley is *openly* pushing for the government to use private tech companies to censor speech. This is a flagrant violation of the Constitution and straight out of the Democrats’ playbook. Any politician who thinks it’s OK for the government to use the private sector as its censorship bureau shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the White House.”
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Another GOP presidential hopeful, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, attacked Haley’s proposal as “dangerous and unconstitutional” and equated it with the type of thing the People’s Republic of China would do.
DeSantis tweeted, “You know who were anonymous writers back in the day? Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison when they wrote the Federalist Papers. They were not ‘national security threats,’ nor are the many conservative Americans across the country who exercise their Constitutional right to voice their opinions without fear of being harassed or canceled by the school they go to or the company they work for. Haley’s proposal to ban anonymous speech online — similar to what China recently did — is dangerous and unconstitutional.”
On X, DeSantis ally Christina Pushaw posted, “I am no lawyer but isn’t this blatantly unconstitutional? Free speech includes anonymous speech.”
Far-right radio host Mark R. Levin ripped Haley as well, tweeting, “And every user should be verified? Haley is showing more and more of her true beliefs.”
But not all of the tweets slamming Haley’s proposal are coming from hard-right politicians or media figures.
HuffPost’s Yashar Ali tweeted, “This is an outrageous and dangerous proposal by Nikki Haley. It’s the kind of change that a fascist demands but she’s doing it under the guise of civility and getting rid of bots. She says that requiring people to verify their identity for social media will get rid of Iranian, Chinese, and Russian bots? Well guess what, it won’t…quite the opposite.”
Mediaite’s Sarah Rumpf posted, “Nikki Haley is wrong to say the gov’t should prohibit people posting anonymously on social media, but DeSantis has ZERO credibility to lecture *anyone* about free speech as long as his stupid & unconstitutional battle with Disney continues.
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