Royal Alexander/Opinion
The First Amendment prohibits government censorship but Leftist politicians and groups are attempting to accomplish the same thing with threats and bullying
It is now undeniable. We continue to see it daily. While the 1st Amendment won’t allow Congress and/or government to censor conservative speech, Leftwing activists and politicians are accomplishing the same thing by use of intimidation and bullying. We have witnessed in the last few months several such actions.
As we know, many large social media entities have banned well known and highly popular conservatives from their platforms. We’ve seen President Trump, himself, and numerous other conservative figures either temporarily or permanently censored and banned from Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat and virtually every other major social media platform. Many that haven’t been banned outright have had large numbers of their social media followers deleted. Apple, Google, and others have also now purged conservative speech and speakers from their platforms as well. This is the beginning of a punitive “de-platforming” push.
[I understand that companies like these are private companies but while they enjoy the enormous benefit of Section 230 legal liability protection from 3d party content under federal law (Communications Decency Act), they shouldn’t be allowed to selectively censor].As Federal Communications Commissioner, Brendan Carr, noted “right now the greatest threat to free speech in this country is not any law passed by the government—the First Amendment stands as a bulwark.” Rather, he continued, “the threat comes in the form of legislating by letterhead. Politicians have realized that they can silence the speech of those with different political viewpoints by public bullying.”
What we know is that Big Tech censored and diminished the visibility of Breitbart News, for example, by some 99% in 2020. Big Tech accomplishes these purges by arbitrarily deeming conservative speech to be “disinformation,” “hate speech” or “authoritative” speech. Do you see how broad those categories are? Anything and everything could potentially be banned! This is accomplished by the tweaking of complex algorithms to either filter out or prominently display certain content as the software directs.
How does this not qualify as consumer fraud and a deceptive business practice? Large numbers of people signed up with these social media platforms, established accounts, posted pictures, bought ads, and cultivated followers but suddenly these companies pull the rug out from under certain customers. It’s a bait and switch. And, for that matter, what about the public accommodation laws? 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000a (a) states that “all persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, … and accommodations of any place of public accommodation … without discrimination…” These social media giants certainly “affect commerce.” For these reasons and others, I feel a solid legal argument can be made that the public accommodation laws should apply online as well as in person.
Big Tech has demonstrated a clear ideological bias, and Congress and regulators should take steps soon to ensure that the great legal and economic benefits these social media platforms were given in 1996—when these fledgling companies promised to be fair and impartial clearinghouses of all speech and content—are curtailed until a marketplace of ideas truly returns.
Unfortunately almost every week we hear of someone being banned from FB, Twitter, and other social media entities. The Pillow Guy products were kicked out of a department store because he supports Trump. That is not the freedom we have come to believe in. Why are they allowed to do that. Now we hear that the new President has put into the COVID bill something special for government employees, something along the lines of unfair again, as far as I’m concerned. Federal employees will get $1400 per week if they have to stay home and home-school their child. Other people have to fend for themselves, and if they lose their jobs, they get unemployment for a set time and then that ends. The rest of us may get $1400 each as long as we don’t have an income that is over the Senate’s set amount.
I guess that little deal for Federal employees will stay in the covid bill, but I am thankful the Parliamentarian kicked out two items in the bill, as they didn’t pertain to COVID. I should say that is as I understand it. Nancy Pelosi wanted a tunnel built in CA with money for COVID. Thank goodness, it is not going to happen, unless she pulls a slick one again. Chuck Schumer threw into the bill, money for a bridge. A lot of people called it the bridge to nowhere. Actually into Canada as I understand. The Parliamentarian threw it out of the bill as quickly as old Chucky boy hid it the bill. These two alone would have stolen (this is my opinion, not the papers or other people) millions and millions from COVID relief and we never would have know it until it was too late.
I am thankful for the honesty of some people in DC who are really doing the job they were hired to do. I pray that the serpents don’t run them out of town on a rail for doing the right thing.
RA I think you should be REINED in
Do keep writing your articles.
Yep I personally had a large amount of things removed from FB and Twitter in the last 4 years and during the election mostly positive things about Trump and negative things about Biden.
Yes Royal, keep on writing. I enjoy your letters.
Tech Giants have too much power.
Liberal media has too much power.
Then, with so much radical brainwashing by these powerful combined media giants, the current administration has too much power. Without working together, as a country should in order to be democratic, we see the beginning of a dictatorship.
These censorships have become cover-ups for the truth. At the beginning of a news piece, I have seen one story, then later, when I recheck it, things are changed and called untrue by “fact checkers, like Snopes”. The removal of the true story so they can continue with their lies, covering up of their corruption.
And, we do see bullying, but for the left, it is ok. I have written several times about the escalating bullying to violence of Antifa and BLM. BLM: famous for attacking police and being back on the streets the next day. These two organizations function by bullying, riots, and other means of shutting down any right wing organized march or event. Good bye any public religion events.
Silence, you conservatives. Stop telling the truth, or else. You never know how far we (left) will go to silence the truth. Shut up, for now we will leave you alone. But what about later?
Then there is the issue with men assaulting women. These women come out of the woodwork when the left wants to bully and destroy their lives. Imagine an old man flirting with young women. For crying out loud, girls you were not harmed by a kiss from a seedy old man. Can your blindsided memories remember how grossed out women and girls(children) were by Biden (AKA Old Sniffer).
So much mean spirited, hate. Just look at the mess this country is in. I am sad for what is happening. I am a acting out against what I see. I offend too. I do not know any other way to express my frustration. I do not know any other way to uphold truth. I sincerely hope you leftists will turn off the media and read books. Nothing like a book. Nothing like reading the full scale accounts by actual witnesses to find the truth.
Yep was censored on Facebook and Twitter.