Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Tuesday proposed forcing social media users to verify their identities before posting, citing “national security” concerns.
The former South Carolina governor’s plan is part of a set of social media reforms aimed at transparency — which she pushed during an appearance on Fox News — that has rankled some of her primary opponents.
“When I get into office, the first thing we have to do, social media accounts, social media companies, they have to show America their algorithms,” Haley said. “Let us see why they’re pushing what they’re pushing.”
“The second thing is, every person on social media should be verified, by their name. That’s, first of all, it’s a national security threat. When you do that, all of a sudden, people have to stand by what they say. And it gets rid of the Russian bots, the Iranian bots and the Chinese bots. And then you’re going to get some civility when people know their name is next to what they say, and they know their pastor and their family members are going to see it,” the 51-year-old former Trump administration official added.
Two of Haley’s GOP primary opponents – entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – blasted her proposal.
“[Haley] 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,” Ramaswamy said in an X post. “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.”
“Alexander Hamilton, John Jay & James Madison wrote the Federalist Papers under pseudonym. Here’s what they would say to [Haley] if they were alive: get your heels off my neck & go back to England,” he said in a separate post.
In his criticism, DeSantis also invoked the authors of the Federalist Papers, who famously wrote under the collective pseudonym “Publius” to promote the ratification of the Constitution.
“You know who were anonymous writers back in the day? Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison when they wrote the Federalist Papers,” DeSantis wrote on X. “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. It will be dead on arrival in my administration,” he added.
The Haley campaign told The Post that the former United Nations ambassador’s proposal is “common sense.”
“We all know that America’s enemies use anonymous bots to spread anti-American lies and sow chaos and division within our borders. Nikki believes social media companies need to do a better job of verifying users so we can crack down on Chinese, Iranian, and Russian bots. That’s common sense,” the Haley campaign said in a statement.