President Trump has expressed concern over the recent mass bannings of conservative voices on social media and is “watching closely.”
By Donald Jeffries
The recent de-platforming of conservative commentators Alex Jones and Laura Loomer, minister Louis Farrakhan, and others illustrates how serious the authoritarian clampdown on free speech is becoming. The fact that so much of the public seems to support this blatant censorship is even more troubling.
President Donald Trump took to Twitter recently, to say, “I am continuing to monitor the censorship of American citizens on social media platforms. This is the United States of America—and we have what’s known as freedom of speech! We are monitoring and watching, closely!”
Trump specifically mentioned Paul Joseph Watson, who was kicked off of Facebook, and actor James Woods, who was banned from Twitter.
Evidently, Trump’s recent White House meeting with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, where they discussed censorship of conservatives and others on social media, had little impact.
The New York Times continued its proud tradition of opposing a free exchange of ideas with a May 6 article headlined, “Trump is Confused About Social Media. He’s Not Alone.” The article informed its dwindling readership that “The First Amendment doesn’t say you can tweet whatever you want.” Leaving aside the fact that neither Twitter nor even the concept of instantaneous global electronic communication existed at the time the Constitution was written, it should be noted that the phrase “hate speech” doesn’t appear anywhere in the document. The article spewed out the typical slurs about “loudmouths and bullies” not having any right to spew their thoughts to potentially millions of people.
Not everyone is taking all this sitting down, nor satisfied with Trump’s “monitoring” things at Twitter. The Texas Senate recently passed a bill that would prevent social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter from censoring users based on their views.
Deep State apologists cite a federal law that permits social media platforms to control and regulate their own content. Republican Sen. Bryan Hughes, the sponsor of the bill that is now headed to the Texas House, declared, “Senate Bill 2373 tries to prevent those companies that control these new public spaces, this new public square, from picking winners and losers based on content. . . . If the company represents, ‘We’re an open forum and we don’t discriminate based on content,’ then they shouldn’t be able to discriminate based on content.”
All of the big social media platforms have been blatantly biased and inconsistent in how punishment and bans are meted out. While James Woods, for instance, has been banned by Twitter, fellow actor Peter Fonda, who tweeted last year that Trump’s 10-year-old son Barron should be put into a cage with pedophiles, something far more offensive than anything Woods has ever posted, remains a member in good standing. While most of the “liberal” establishment has applauded the de-platforming of Jones and other right-leaning sources, both NPR and the ACLU strongly opposed it. The ACLU called the latest bans “an authoritarian power move.”
Facebook referred to Jones, conservative commentator Milo Yiannopoulos, and others recently de-platformed as “dangerous individuals” who were promulgating “hate speech.” At the exact moment Mark Zuckerberg’s company was bringing the hammer down on “hate,” the Occupy Democrats Facebook page was allowed to post a “joke” about Sarah Huckabee Sanders telling Trump that she’d “had a dream that you finally got the parade you’ve wanted,” with “millions of people lining the streets waving and cheering as you passed by in a large, black limo.” When Trump asks, “Was I smiling?” Sanders replies, “I don’t know, sir, the lid on the casket was closed.” The post, which accrued 37,000 likes and 17,000 shares, remained up on Facebook, apparently not guilty of violating their policy against “hate” or “objectionable material.” The previous month, on the other hand, Facebook-owned Instagram had deleted a photo of Donald Trump Jr. with U.S. Army veteran Omar Avila for an unspecified “violation.” Avila was understandably baffled, stating, “Again, I don’t know why; it had nothing on it that was political or that said anything derogatory.”
Facebook has dug in its heels and is clearly committed to an establishment “left,” social justice warrior agenda. The social media giant has recently blocked objective information about abortion from the American Pregnancy Association’s website.
YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, has cracked down aggressively on “conspiracy theory” videos, which in reality means anything questioning the establishment and their unconvincing official narratives. Almost every leading alternative media figure has reported being demonetized, censored, or banned on YouTube since this campaign began in earnest. They also manipulate their algorithms, in order to suppress “conspiracy-friendly” videos from online search results and suggested items.
Facebook is now banning any mention of Alex Jones’s Infowars unless it is negative in connotation.
But there is some hope on the horizon. In addition to the bill in Texas, Republicans in Florida and Rhode Island have introduced the Stop Social Media Censorship Act.
Without a free exchange of ideas, we don’t have a free country.
Donald Jeffries is a highly respected author and researcher whose work on the JFK, RFK and MLK assassinations and other high crimes of the Deep State has been read by millions of people across the world. Jeffries is also the author of two books currently being sold by the AFP Online Store.
