Clarice Feldman writes for the American Thinker about the government and media shutting down information that challenges their preferred narrative.
If you’ve ever wondered why you can’t find common factual ground with liberal friends, the reason may be that not only have private outfits worked successfully to censor news, but that government agencies as well, from the CDC to the CIA, have successfully censored it by proxy. It’s not just the major media that have been corrupted by the government (acting as megaphones for government agencies and so fearful of offending their sources that they help them cover up wrongdoing), but the new media, which we had supposed would allow alternative sources of information to become more widely available, is severely compromised. This week, following the exposure of pre-Elon Musk-takeover Twitter and the revelations of government censorship of the website, the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government began its hearings. The focus to start was on Twitter, but I cannot believe that higher-ranked sites like Facebook are any different. We just do not yet have access to their inner operations. (Speaking as one who never has bullied others or posted pornography or incited criminal behavior there, I am perpetually denied full exposure on Facebook for defying the unclear “community standards” which they claim to be enforcing.)
Yes, as usual, there were the cameo appearances of the now-fired Twitter executives who admitted they “erred” in suppressing news of Hunter Biden’s laptop and banning the NY Post for daring to report on it, but to my way of thinking, the key witness was law professor Jonathan Turley, who shares my concern about government censorship through website proxies, as was clearly the case with Twitter. …
… He contends that such a role by government agencies violated the First Amendment, noting “Twitter and Facebook clearly had an impact [on our elections] by suppressing certain stories and viewpoints in our public discourse.”
