Censorship in democracies

In recent weeks democratic politicians Hillary Clinton and John Kerry called for more censorship on social media and to end or significantly reduce free speech and First Amendment rights. Both Clinton and Kerry are bitter washed-up politicians, but they are still powerful voices of the democratic party. There are many other voices calling for censorship of digital speech, recently in Brazil, Germany, and Great Britain. One might think that free speech is a fundamental freedom in democracies, but there is a trend globally, primarily driven by parties on the left, to curb free speech and they claim it is in an effort to stop far right extremist parties.

Many of these parties are nationalistic and want to protect their countries and citizens from illegal immigrants. Many countries like Iran and China have been successful in building out a strong surveillance network of its citizens, often with help from western corporations, to be able to crack down on dissent and threats to the ruling parties. Technology would support a similar possibility in democratic countries and the main source for information would be digital use of computers and phones. Politicians and global elites are claiming that to save democracy, they must reduce to a minimum the public’s access to information and communication. They claim that the government must control and detoxify the flow of digital content.

Thanks to Twitter files, we know that the democratic party erected an elaborate digital censorship apparatus that silenced disfavored individuals and took down millions of offensive posts. Thanks for Mark Zuckerberg’s recent letter to Congress, we know that starting in 2021, the Biden White House pressured him successfully to censor certain Covid-19 content. The reason is to make sure only government information would filter through and that any dissent to Covid-19 information would be suppressed. Mainstream media follows the same path and in effect only brings up filtered information and that goes for search engines and other screening functions in digital media.

The digital war on people opposing government policies has intensified in recent years. In Great Britain, social-media influencers are being prosecuted for fomenting riots and people have been put in jail for social media posts. In Brazil, the left-wing government has out freedom of speech restrictions under the weights of arrests, prosecutions, and fines. Recently X was fined for allowing postings of anti-government messages. Other countries that have blocked X include China, Russia, Iran, and Burma. The Biden administration has remained quiet and even criticized Elon Musk, the owner of X, for allowing certain posts on X. There have certainly not been any attempts to protect free speech and the First Amendment.

Why have the progressive left elites in democratic countries gone to war against free speech and digital social media? Institutional control over the public sphere and people’s lives was shattered by the initial spread of the internet and now the institutions are trying to regain control. The states are tightening their grips. At the same time, parties to the right are emerging as more powerful and the tension has increased in many countries as a result. Some examples are the electoral triumphs of Meloni in Italy, Milei in Argentina, the far right in Austria, Le Pen in France, the Alternative for Deutschland in Germany, and Wilders in the Netherlands. Are governments under elite control in trouble? The ruling coalition in Germany is hanging by a thread. The new Labour government in Britain has seen its popularity decline sharply to 29%. Most people don’t want the government to meddle with free speech and the voters will react in government’s overstep their boundaries. After all, in many countries, the ruling politician would like to be in power forever and to oppress dissent, they would like a one-party state. We have seen this kind of development in many countries through the years, where democracies turn into authoritarian states or even dictatorships. The only way to stop that is free speech and free elections.

It is frightening that some democrats would oppose this, but it is certainly worth noting. It is important to ask questions related to this such as why democrats want more illegal immigrants, why do democrats want elections without proper controls such as required voter ID, why do they want more censorship and the questions can go on. In the end of the day, there is only one answer: They want to stay in power, if possible, forever, if possible, alone as a one-party state.