Support Free Speech by Supporting Facebook
People who love the warm embrace of government regulations are always quick to remind you that when businesses or markets get too large, it is in the public’s best interest for the government to step in and serve as referee. I agree to some extent when you are talking about the free exchange of goods and services. But what happens when a business who exchanges in the free exchange of ideas and thoughts gets too large?
Facebook gives voice to the thoughts of the public. They are essentially a stage for free speech. You can’t regulate Mark Zuckerberg as if he’s an oil baron or building tycoon. Facebook is in the business of trading ideas, not merchandise.
There is nothing new happening at Facebook that hasn’t happened for thousands of years. When people get together they share family news, gossip, or crazy stories. The only thing new is that people are now much more efficient at sharing their gossip or news. The solution to the spread of bad ideas has and always will be...more free speech. Not less. Those who advocate for less, are always those who think that they will lose the argument.
I’ve been shocked as of lately at all of the parties in the tech world who are openly inviting the government to step in and censor free speech on Facebook. It’s reminiscent of the Old Testament account of how the Israelites told God that they wanted a king to rule over them and rejected self-rule. Who in their right mind openly advocates for government censorship?
One party who likes censorship is the Democrats. It helps to preserve their power if they can squash stories that make them look bad. And both parties want to get their hands on Facebook. The Democrats want to control the narrative to preserve Democratic success at the ballot box and advance their socialist ideas. The Republicans at least want to stop anti-conservative bias but using government power to accomplish that is no less odious. Both parties want social media to become subject to the whims of the party in power.
So what’s the harm in some government regulation aimed at stopping the spread of “misinformation”? Well, “misinformation” is simply a camouflage term for government censorship. Take a look at how this term has been used in the recent past.
The Wuhan Lab Leak Theory
In 2020, anyone who mentioned that Covid may have originated from a viral research lab in Wuhan China was labeled as spreading misinformation. ZeroHedge lost their twitter account for putting forth facts about the Wuhan lab.
The Wuhan lab leak is now the leading theory accepted by everyone as the probably origination of Covid-19. But due to government ideas on how this might affect the public, they wanted the truth squashed. The social media companies are only too easily duped into acquiescing to government requests.
Hunter Biden Laptop Story
During the most recent presidential term of Donald Trump, the Democrats spent four years warning of the danger that a president could be unduly influenced by a foreign state like Russia. A foreign state wielding undue power over an American president must be of utmost concern to the Democrats right?
It turns out, not really. The Democrats lined up about 150 security experts to say that the whole story about a laptop with damaging info regarding dealings between China and Hunter Biden is most likely a misinformation attempt by the Republicans. The Democrats moved heaven and earth to spike this story which emerged just prior to the 2020 election. It was called misinformation.
This story could’ve been huge. At a time when the pandemic was theorized to have originated in China we had a president up for election that seemed to have been benefitting financially from business dealings between his son and China. And at a time when America was finally standing up to China and refusing to let them take advantage of all of their neighbors and trading partners, Biden says he could continue that hard line?
Well, lo and behold, now the election is over and it doesn’t matter. Guess what we’re finding about that laptop of information? It’s now looking like it was real and all those “experts” were simply shills for the Democrats. And with the intertwined financial dealings of the Biden family and China it is doubtful that President Biden would ever continue the hard line with China.
Conclusion
It’s amazing how much control the Democrats can exert over the media simply by making requests to sympathetic parties at news outlets or Silicon Valley. Imagine how much worse it could get if they had the levers of a government regulatory agency to enforce their will at the tip of a sword? Government reach over social media must not be allowed to happen.
If you support free speech, you must by necessity support Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook at all cost. This is where the battle for free speech will be fought. Those who want to destroy a pillar of freedom always choose the most unpopular character that they can find to frame the issue as a service to the public. But defenders of freedom know that defending freedom, means standing up for the unpopular.
There is nothing new happening at Facebook that hasn’t happened for thousands of years. When people get together they share family news, gossip, or crazy stories. The only thing new is that people are now much more efficient at sharing their gossip or news. The solution to the spread of bad ideas has and always will be...more free speech. Not less. Those who advocate for less, are always those who think that they will lose the argument.
I’ve been shocked as of lately at all of the parties in the tech world who are openly inviting the government to step in and censor free speech on Facebook. It’s reminiscent of the Old Testament account of how the Israelites told God that they wanted a king to rule over them and rejected self-rule. Who in their right mind openly advocates for government censorship?
One party who likes censorship is the Democrats. It helps to preserve their power if they can squash stories that make them look bad. And both parties want to get their hands on Facebook. The Democrats want to control the narrative to preserve Democratic success at the ballot box and advance their socialist ideas. The Republicans at least want to stop anti-conservative bias but using government power to accomplish that is no less odious. Both parties want social media to become subject to the whims of the party in power.
So what’s the harm in some government regulation aimed at stopping the spread of “misinformation”? Well, “misinformation” is simply a camouflage term for government censorship. Take a look at how this term has been used in the recent past.
The Wuhan Lab Leak Theory
In 2020, anyone who mentioned that Covid may have originated from a viral research lab in Wuhan China was labeled as spreading misinformation. ZeroHedge lost their twitter account for putting forth facts about the Wuhan lab.
The Wuhan lab leak is now the leading theory accepted by everyone as the probably origination of Covid-19. But due to government ideas on how this might affect the public, they wanted the truth squashed. The social media companies are only too easily duped into acquiescing to government requests.
Hunter Biden Laptop Story
During the most recent presidential term of Donald Trump, the Democrats spent four years warning of the danger that a president could be unduly influenced by a foreign state like Russia. A foreign state wielding undue power over an American president must be of utmost concern to the Democrats right?
It turns out, not really. The Democrats lined up about 150 security experts to say that the whole story about a laptop with damaging info regarding dealings between China and Hunter Biden is most likely a misinformation attempt by the Republicans. The Democrats moved heaven and earth to spike this story which emerged just prior to the 2020 election. It was called misinformation.
This story could’ve been huge. At a time when the pandemic was theorized to have originated in China we had a president up for election that seemed to have been benefitting financially from business dealings between his son and China. And at a time when America was finally standing up to China and refusing to let them take advantage of all of their neighbors and trading partners, Biden says he could continue that hard line?
Well, lo and behold, now the election is over and it doesn’t matter. Guess what we’re finding about that laptop of information? It’s now looking like it was real and all those “experts” were simply shills for the Democrats. And with the intertwined financial dealings of the Biden family and China it is doubtful that President Biden would ever continue the hard line with China.
Conclusion
It’s amazing how much control the Democrats can exert over the media simply by making requests to sympathetic parties at news outlets or Silicon Valley. Imagine how much worse it could get if they had the levers of a government regulatory agency to enforce their will at the tip of a sword? Government reach over social media must not be allowed to happen.
If you support free speech, you must by necessity support Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook at all cost. This is where the battle for free speech will be fought. Those who want to destroy a pillar of freedom always choose the most unpopular character that they can find to frame the issue as a service to the public. But defenders of freedom know that defending freedom, means standing up for the unpopular.
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