(Photo by Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA via AP Images) / (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Don’t check the year, you haven’t time-traveled. But former Republican Senator Rick Santorum in comments to Mediaite on Sunday clapped back at former Democratic Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, over plans for “digital literacy” education and other initiatives she advocated in a recent op-ed.

Clinton, along with her close, billionaire ally Jim Steyer, published an editorial in Albany’s Times Union last week that called for “a K-12 digital literacy program in conjunction with classroom phone bans.”

Santorum, in comments to Mediaite, responded by saying, “As we have witnessed over the past four years, government control of information resulted into hyper-partisan education for children and the stifling of viewpoints online that do not comport with leftist ideology.”

At issue are pieces of proposed legislation and regulation in New York and other states regarding the internet, social media, and artificial intelligence as they relate to children.

“Last year, the state Legislature and Gov. Kathy Hochul took action by passing the nation-leading SAFE For Kids Act to combat addictive social media feeds and out-of-control notifications,” Clinton and Steyer wrote, arguing that now is the time to “build on that progress in three areas critical to kids’ online safety.”

Those areas were: A measure to ban cellphones in classrooms, legislation requiring “warning labels” on social media platforms, and other New York initiatives designed to combat harmful uses of AI, including so-called chat “Companions”.

Clinton and Steyer propose a “digital literacy” program to teach schoolchildren “the skills they need to navigate the online world,” overseen by government.

Santorum, who last year torched the KOSA Kids Online Safety Act as just a way to “facilitate digital censorship of culturally conservative views,” told Mediaite Sunday that it’s no surprise that a “collectivist” like Clinton has come out in support of these initiatives.

“It should come as no great surprise that Hillary Clinton, who authored the book “It Takes a Village” — a collectivist approach to raising our children — is now advocating for Big Government legislation to impose ‘digital literacy.’

As we have witnessed over the past four years, government control of information resulted into hyper-partisan education for children and the stifling of viewpoints online that do not comport with leftist ideology.

I wrote a book in response to Hillary Clinton called “It Takes a Family” arguing that parents not government should control the education of their child including their consumption of media.

Politicians and bureaucrats don’t need more power and more tools to help form our children, parents do. Her initiative and many other similar initiatives erode parents’ decision-making authority and empower Big Brother to shape the moral framework of our children.”

It is worth noting that both support of and opposition to the KOSA Kids Online Safety Act and similar proposed laws and initiatives crosses party lines.



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