Free Speech

Those who support a culture of reason should be rooting for Elon Musk’s Twitter to succeed.

Facebook’s vice president has admitted fact-checkers are not necessarily objective, and the company even acknowledged recently in a lawsuit that fact-check tags are “opinion,” not factual assertions.

At issue is whether and to what extent the government itself has had a hand in encouraging tech companies to squelch speech. If so, this is unconstitutional.

Forcing companies to allow content is the flip side of prohibiting them from expressing certain ideas. These are the two side of the censorship coin.

Social media companies are not a threat to free speech. Governments that do not respect property rights are.

Many will argue that Twitter and other tech companies censored Mr. Senger, Mr. Changizi, and Mr. Kotzin of their own volition, and as they are private actors, the First Amendment is inapplicable. 

That argument should be rejected.

Elon Musk’s exciting and dramatic move represents a bold attempt to overthrow the regime of control, propaganda, and enforced opinion as manufactured by the administrative state.

Undereducated journalists have “fact checked” things they’re not qualified to understand, “misinformation” now seems to mean “words by anybody who disagrees with me.” With the Joe Rogan debacle, it all falls into place. 

Assange was merely doing what the vast majority of the mainstream media has long since neglected: his job.

YouTube bans any video that contradicts pronouncements of the World Health Organization.

Should Facebook have a policy of removing “misinformation” in the first place?

Climate Feedback’s “fact-check” wasn’t about actual facts.

If we want a free and fair internet, we must respect the rights of tech companies.

While Prince Harry, some Senators, and the American people may be confused about the First Amendment, the founders were not.

Corporations cannot censor, only governments can.

YouTube abruptly deleted some of Louder with Crowder videos, blocked him from uploading new videos for a week and permanently demonetized his channel. “It means I can make $0 on YouTube,” he explains.

America has entered into a new era of thought control. What is being insisted upon now used to be known as tyranny and criticized as dictatorship.

Section 230 simply says that only internet users are responsible for what they write, not the private companies whose websites host the commenters. Secondly, it affirms what the First Amendment already implies—that private companies don’t have to host speech that violates their values.

Real censorship is when the state uses its legal power to use force to determine the content of speech we should engage in (either by banning non-rights violating speech or forcing one to say things one would not do so voluntarily). If the state can arbitrarily determine what Twitter must post, it goes from being the protector of freedom of speech to its censor.

A free-market option to counteracting the bias of today’s internet tech companies.

How Facebook lets activists restrict my videos based on something I never said.

What is the true test of a person’s commitment to free speech? The true test does not come when he permits people to say those things he deems acceptable. The true test comes when he permits people to say those things that he deems offensive.

Abandoning objectivity—factual reporting—and spreading misinformation, no matter how popular, is not in media companies’ self-interest in the long term.

The new totalitarians demand that no one criticize their view of the world.