Mark Zuckerberg has finally admitted what most people already knew or, at least, suspected. On Aug. 26, the Meta CEO revealed that the Biden-Harris administration did in fact pressure Facebook to censor certain views and information posted to the social media platform. And this is far from the only progressive, globalist attack on free speech. Pavel Durov, the CEO of Telegram, was recently arrested in France. Then there are the Twitter Files, which showed the platform now known as X had been targeted by multiple government agencies.
Killing Free Speech to Keep Us Safe?
Politicians and bureaucrats always seem to use the same excuses to justify censoring free speech and limiting fundamental rights: It's for our own good. It must be done to protect us, to keep us safe, and to maintain national security. But what government – regardless of how democratic it may claim to be – hasn't eventually become obsessed with increased security and control, ever more reluctant to allow free speech or other basic liberties?
In some Western countries – perhaps most notably the United Kingdom – everyday citizens are being arrested and even imprisoned for Facebook posts that aren't approved of by the government. But it's all done for our protection, so no need to worry.
In the US, at least, it is clear that the war on free speech is being waged for political purposes. Censorship efforts are coming almost exclusively from the political left. Progressives are no longer even hiding their hostility towards free speech. Alexander Vindman, who became a darling of the Democratic Party after testifying against then-President Donald Trump during the latter’s first impeachment hearings, recently gloated over the Telegram CEO’s arrest.
“While Durov holds French citizenship, is arrested for violating French law, this has broader implications for other social media, including Twitter,” Vindman posted on X. “There’s a growing intolerance for platforming disinfo & malign influence & a growing appetite for accountability. Musk should be nervous.”
Naturally, Vindman went after Musk, who is almost universally despised by the left. There probably isn't a social media platform in existence that is not being used by certain people for nefarious purposes. Why, then, did Vindman not suggest that Mark Zuckerberg should be worried? More to the point, should the CEO of any social media company be held criminally liable for the activities in which some of their users engage?
Misinformation About Misinformation
A growing intolerance for platforming disinfo? Chilling stuff, particularly when one asks oneself, who gets to decide what constitutes “disinfo.” The answer, of course, is the authorities, the very same people who spread plenty disinformation of their own. There was the Trump-Russia collusion story, replete with falsehoods but reported ad nauseam by the establishment media. Then came the anti-COVID restrictions – now proven to have been largely ineffective. Yet we were told they were essential to stopping the spread of the virus. There are plenty of other examples of people in positions of authority peddling misinformation while telling us they want censorship to protect us from misinformation.
Hate speech and misinformation are almost entirely defined by the progressive left to encompass any opinions they don't like or any information they don't want the general public to know.
Alexander Vindman may be of little consequence, but another opponent of free speech could possibly become the next vice president of the United States. During a 2022 MSNBC interview, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, now Kamala Harris’ 2024 running mate, said: “There is no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.” That is a disturbing perspective. Ironically, it is also disinformation. The US Supreme Court has ruled that there is no exception to the First Amendment when it comes to hate speech. Also absent from the First Amendment is any prohibition on saying things that are not true.
Like a disturbingly large number of people on the left, Walz firmly believes that government should regulate speech. He backed the idea of creating what has been labeled a “bias registry” in Minnesota. The plan was to encourage residents of the state to report so-called bias-related incidents to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. Effectively, it was a tool for tattling on your neighbors for “thought crimes.”
It is reasonable to conclude, then, that if the Harris-Walz ticket prevails in the November election, it will herald the birth of an administration hostile to free speech. It is also reasonable to ponder the possibility that, in the name of protecting the people, the US government and many of its foreign counterparts will step up efforts to regulate what can and cannot be said on social media platforms – or even in public, for that matter. Benjamin Franklin once wrote: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” While the true historical context of this quote is a little different from what most people understand, it still contains a valuable lesson about the dangers of trading freedom for some notion of safety.
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