The social media companies have been engaging in widespread censorship, especially since COVID and the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election. It isn’t just conservatives and libertarians being censored. It is really anyone who is going against the establishment narrative who is vulnerable to censorship.
There have been calls from some people for the government to regulate social media companies to ensure free speech. This is completely wrong and anti liberty. It is especially crazy to suggest such a thing when it is the government that is largely behind the censoring.
If the government played absolutely no role in censorship, it is hard to say what would be happening now. Maybe we would still see widespread censorship just because it is seen as the culturally popular thing to do. Chances are, though, there would be a lot less censorship coming from big tech companies.
Property rights should be respected, so libertarians should not ever call for government intervention to prevent a private company from engaging in censorship. The problem we have is that there is already government intervention, and it is unlawful and immoral.
It was already obvious that the government was, at the very least, pressuring social media companies to censor or hide anything of significance that went against the establishment narrative. With Elon Musk buying Twitter and releasing documents, we now have the proof that the FBI and the executive branch (at a minimum) have been telling Twitter what to censor.
It would be naïve to think that this isn’t going on with other major social media and big tech companies like Facebook and Google.
My Blog
I originally started this blog using Blogger/ Blogspot, which are owned by Google. At some point, I switched over to WordPress, which I actually don’t find that user friendly. I also lost traffic when I switched, although some of that could have been my fault for broken links that were supposed to point back to my own posts.
I have used WordPress for quite a while now, and I can see the traffic. It is far lower than it was when I used Blogger. I have a small group of loyal followers who either get an email with my posts or check out my site periodically, but I still get some traffic referred from search engines.
I can tell you that I get almost no referrals from Google, which is the biggest search platform. I get the most referrals from DuckDuckGo. Maybe there are more libertarians or people searching for libertarian things on DuckDuckGo, but it shouldn’t be this imbalanced considering DuckDuckGo has a small fraction of the users as Google.
Interestingly, despite my many criticisms of Bill Gates, I do get some hits from Bing. I get more from Bing than I do from Google.
I have no doubt that Google is censoring my posts because of what they say. I have been a critic of lockdowns and COVID vaccines since the beginning of those things, and I have had my share of things to say about Trump (some positive and some not).
Google is hiding my posts on purpose because they go against the establishment narrative. I used to get many hits coming from Google, even after I had switched to WordPress. It was my primary source of traffic. If you search for “libertarian investments”, you will probably find my site. But if you search for words related to a post on the site, you probably won’t find it on the first page of Google results, if at all.
I’m just relaying this personal experience because it is indicative of what is happening. The big tech companies are censoring content that goes against the establishment narrative. And it is likely coming directly from the FBI or some other government agency. Twitter wasn’t/ isn’t alone on this front.
Illegal Pressuring
Maybe this goes against the 1St Amendment. It certainly goes against the spirit of the 1st Amendment. But that says that Congress shall make no law. And technically, Congress hasn’t made a law here except in that it funds the FBI.
If you want to look at the amendment really being violated, it is the same amendment that is violated almost all of the time. The 10th Amendment states that powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are reserved to the States or the people.
There is no authority in the Constitution that grants any government agency the right to censor anyone, or to threaten any company to get them to censor anyone.
The people telling Twitter and any other companies what to censor are breaking the law. They are committing a criminal act and should be prosecuted. But the criminals are the ones in charge, so that isn’t happening. We haven’t even seen an apology, let alone a resignation, from the head of the FBI.
Of course, Biden and company know what is happening and are in on it. They are criminals as well. They are trying to shut people up, and they are doing it by threatening the use of government violence.
The only thing that will stop this is a mass awakening by the public. The good news is that more people are awakening to the evil establishment forces. The ruling elite criminals are not just Democrats, which many Republicans are starting to realize.
Elon Musk didn’t really tell us much that we didn’t already know (for those paying attention), but it is proof. And it has also awakened more people and put the discussion out there. More Americans are losing faith in the system, which they should. Now they need to withdraw their consent.