Recently, the far-left media and tech companies have ramped up their censorship of conservatives and centrist liberals. Many are deeply concerned, and rightfully so. Never in the land of the free has free speech been under such massive assault. However, the vicious attacks are also a positive sign because they indicate that progressives do not have confidence in their arguments. They fear the free market of ideas and want to enforce a monopoly on truth.
Vox vs. Crowder
After internet comedian and YouTube star Steven Crowder made fun of Vox’ Carlos Maza, Vox launched what can be described as a war on independent content creators on YouTube. Vox created a significant hit piece on Crowder and urged YouTube to start mass censorship, all under the guise of combatting “hate speech.”
YouTube was not slow to respond. Within days, many channels had been demonetized or outright banned. Among those removed for “hate speech” was a history channel that had a documentary on National Socialism in Germany. Apparently, history lessons are hateful, too.
The New York Times vs. Everyone
Then The New York Times published a hit piece titled “The Making of a YouTube Radical,” in which a troubled young man became enthralled with several right-wing YouTube personalities, and for a while identified himself as a traditional conservative and dated an evangelical Christian. This counts as “radicalization” in the eyes of The Times.
But the story ends well. After having flirted with conservatism for a while, the young man was finally “deradicalized” when he came across some communist channels. He is now back to being a far-left progressive.
After the article, several of the featured content creators experienced further demonetization.
A New Gutenberg Revolution
Such concerted efforts to silence the opposition reflects the progress that conservatives have made after the democratization of media through the internet. Society is going through a transformation similar to the one initiated by Gutenberg’s printing press. That technology democratized the written word and was the basis for the rise of Protestantism in the 16th century.
The core tenet of the movement started by Martin Luther is that the Bible is available to all for individual interpretation. No middleman priest is needed to control the narrative. The Catholic Church did not like this loss of power, so it resorted to every possible method to strangle free access. The result was a religious civil war in Europe that lasted more than a century.
The Catholic Church survived but lost the war and had to give way to other beliefs. Although many conservatives are frustrated and worried about this totalitarian attempt to muzzle alternative voices, they should keep in mind that the Protestants experienced far worse pressure and prevailed.
Those who have good arguments are not afraid of competing viewpoints. The more they want to ban alternatives, the more they lay bare their inferior arguments. In the end, however, truth and reason tend to win.
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