The Senator called for Silicon Valley tech giants to do more than just censor InfoWars over Twitter. "Infowars is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart. These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it," Murphy tweeted.
Infowars is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart. These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it.
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) August 6, 2018
In a separate tweet, Murphy also praised Google, Apple and Facebook for taking down InfoWars' pages and channels from their networks.
I know Facebook and Apple and YouTube have gotten so big they sometimes seem like the government.
But they aren’t.
They are private companies that shouldn’t knowingly spread lies and hate. They took a good first step today by removing Infowars.
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) August 6, 2018
Whether or not these companies are "knowingly" spreading certain content is arguable: Facebook, YouTube and Apple podcasts are all platforms which provide users a place to share their ideas. Under Murphy's premises, all domain- or web-hosting services should give users the boot if their sites produce or share content they don't like.
As Murphy notes, Facebook, Apple and YouTube are not part of the government, and are not bound to uphold the First Amendment -- a fact so convenient one might suppose is by design. Without the legal binds of the Bill of Rights to uphold, liberal politicians are free to lobby social media networks for whatever cause they wish -- even if their proposed cause is to circumvent the rights of American citizens.
Murphy's call to ban more conservatives from the internet is highly concerning not just because of the infringement of free speech, but because of the future implications of setting such a precedent. The liberal left wants to regain control of the media, and will clearly use any means necessary to do so.
And under the guise of "hate speech," left-leaning tech companies can remove and ban any of their patrons at whim.
Writing for Breitbart, John Nolte contends, "InfoWars being silenced tightens the free speech circle, brings the line closer to you and I, especially in a terrifying and chilling climate where the left-wing establishment are deciding what 'lies and hate' are."
Censorship of the conservative voice has been an on-going problem, but now that Alex Jones has been banned, things may only get worse. As Mike Adams, founder of Natural News and Brighteon.com, argues, a social media presence is an integral part of meaningful interaction in today's society. Adams notes that Facebook is equivalent to the "public square" of yesteryear. Facebook may be a private company, but it is a digital public space -- and the right to free speech in public spaces is a right Americans can't afford to lose, especially if they're conservative.
In a recent video, Adams highlighted the dangers of growing online censorship. See below:
You can see more coverage of stories about conservative censoring at Censorship.news.
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