FREE SPEECH UNDER ATTACK

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, but there are limitations to this freedom. The ongoing challenge is to define where to draw the line, which has never been as blurry as it is in 2021 with social media’s response to President Donald Trump.

In a time when social media is how young people get their news and how they connect with other like-minded individuals and groups, getting blocked or banned is the equivalent of being silenced. It’s censorship, plain and simple.

President Trump’s son, Don Jr., summed up the problem up succinctly: “We are living Orwell’s 1984. Free speech no longer exists in America. It died with big tech and what’s left is only there for a chosen few.”

This isn’t just “cancel culture” getting a little out of hand – it’s a cancel crusade, and it’s a major threat to America as a leader among free, democratic, representative governments. To make matters worse, it’s a clear-cut case of multiple media platforms conspiring to take sides against one specific party.

Of course, the cancel crusade didn’t just suddenly start in 2021. For years, Twitter has hidden some of the President’s tweets while attaching warning messages to others. Facebook has similarly “labeled” a number of Trump’s postings on its platform.

Meanwhile, it’s been common knowledge that Facebook, Google, and YouTube have suppressed alt-right postings – including during the 2016 and 2020 elections.

That’s how the Orwellian nightmare begins: it’s not just “them” that they’re censoring, as the media could just as easily monitor, control, and suppress your postings. It’s a war on your freedom of expression, therefore on the Constitution itself.

Twitter claims, “Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open.” But do Twitter’s actions match those words?

To answer this question, let’s rewind to January 6. That’s when Twitter made the rare and extreme move of locking the President’s account and blocking him from posting for 12 hours. During that time, 88 million of the President’s followers had no access to Trump’s primary means of directly interacting with the citizens without filters.

At almost exactly the same time, Facebook and Snapchat locked the President’s accounts on their respective platforms. Remember, these are separate platforms owned by different entities – but apparently controlled by the same thoughts and moving in lockstep.

Keep in mind that this wasn’t the end of the suppression effort – not even close, as Twitter had only locked Trump’s account temporarily at that time. Also note that the major social media networks, along with a number of mainstream media outlets, either refused to show an important Trump speech during this time or heavily edited it.

It was during this time that another social media site, Instagram, had also locked the President’s account. However, only 12 hours after blocking Trump, Twitter allowed the President to post his tweets again – but as we’ll see, this wouldn’t last long.

On January 7, Facebook suspended the President’s account “indefinitely.” The next day, Donald Trump’s Twitter account was permanently suspended.

The President wasn’t the only one caught in the big-tech purge. During this time, Twitter permanently banned the account of conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh and two Trump loyalists: former national security adviser Michael Flynn and attorney Sidney Powell.

Then, other social media platforms started piling on:

Google suspended Parler – which was intended to serve as a free-speech rival to Twitter and is popular with conservative voices – from its online store.

There have been reports that Apple is also threatening to ban Parler.

• Two online Trump memorabilia stores were shut down by e-commerce company Shopify.
• Reddit banned its “donaldtrump” subreddit for the President’s supporters.
• YouTube (which is owned by Google) vowed to “start removing any piece of content [alleging that] widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 US Presidential election” or that “widespread software glitches” changed the outcome of the election.
• TikTok began redirecting hashtags like #patriotparty to its community guidelines.

The cancel crusade was in full effect, with the First Amendment hanging in the balance for all Americans. As Trump 2020 campaign adviser Jason Miller tweeted: “If you don’t think they’re coming for you next, you’re wrong.”

It wasn’t just a case of Twitter blocking the President’s latest tweets – the entire history of Trump’s Twitter postings was wiped out, as if they had never existed. Shortly after, Trump tweeted using his campaign’s @TeamTrump account. Literally 10 seconds later, that account was suspended.

The next thing you know, Trump campaign digital director Gary Coby’s Twitter account was suspended. Twitter also suspended General Michael Flynn, President Trump’s first National Security Adviser, and attorney Sidney Powell. Mark Zuckerberg reiterated that his ban of the President from Facebook and Instagram was for an “indefinite” period of time – or at least until the end of his term.

Moreover, in a move that would be humorous if it weren’t real, Twitter even went so far as to suspend the account of a French MP just forimpersonating Donald Trump. And if you can believe it, Lehigh University just revoked a 33-year-old honorary degree given to President Trump in 1988.

Conservative podcast host Dan Bongino, who has also been a victim of tweet removal, offered up a warning to America amid the chaos: “The speech suppression is going to get worse.” Is there any doubt that he’s right?

There is a growing backlash against the suppression scheme. Users are leaving Twitter in droves, while the phrase “Goodbye Twitter” is quickly trending on the platform. At the same time, the Parler Website is being overwhelmed with new conservative-leaning users.

Plus, the President could already be making a move to join another platform – or even launch his own: “We have been negotiating with various other sites, and will have a big announcement soon, while we also look at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future,” he said.

The crisis continues: the war against constitutional rights has been years in the making – and it’s now at a critical point, as big tech faces the consequences for infringing upon the freedoms that define our nation.