The battle against free speech is being waged steadily and its outcome is clear. Some psychological and philosophical issues need to be addressed here so that one can comprehend how lefties came to have such a passionate hate of free speech rights.
Constitutionally there is no hate speech which is prohibited. For the sake of not being misunderstood this does not mean that one has a right to turn into a keyboard warrior or cowboy writing anything that comes to mind. But Leftists hold the opposing viewpoint. They believe that “hate speech” should be forbidden and that they should be the ones to define what it is. What they want is that they are appointed as the arbiters on hate speech issues. This means that they want to get the power to control ALL communication. If one wants to control society acting as a sort of thought police all one has to do is to declare that everything one disagrees with is hate speech regardless of its veracity.
Do property rights negate free speech? This oversimplifies the problem of free expression and major social media platforms make direct reference to social media websites. The problem or “wrong paradigm ” is that only when it comes to massive corporate huge tech platforms like Twitter Facebook YouTube etc. do leftists defend private property rights. They support private property rights for businesses they believe to be on their side but oppose them for all other businesses.
Facebook now known as Meta claimed to have developed artificial intelligence technology that can respond more quickly to new forms of dangerous information such as posts preventing COVID-19 vaccines.[1]So this new ‘Cutting-edge AI supercomputer’ will be used to censor “hate speech” and “misinformation”. For instance the social media platform prohibits sharing dangerous COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and anyone who writes against Covid-19 has either the account restricted or banned! But what makes speaking against Covid-19 described as “misinformation” while speaking in favour is not? Isn’t this the banning of free speech and anyone who is against the narrative? Who classified it so? Since when did this social platform turn into a censorship platform?[2]
Amazon has also quietly ended the sale of some books which it decided to label as “hate speech”.[3]Then guess what! These books must have had some valuable Truth in them. Before it did this move Amazon changed its content policy to explicitly forbid books that promote “hate speech” after removing a book critical of transgender ideology from its digital shelves. This was a significant rule change that could be used to justify action against a wider range of books sold by the digital retail giants. The book it abruptly removed from its main website store Kindle servers and audiobook selection without providing a reason was called “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Movement”. This happened despite the fact that the book had been on the site for three years without causing any apparent controversy. In this book author Ryan Anderson criticizes the dominant approach to transgender issues in contemporary medicine by referencing years of scientific research and evidence.
Leftists have a collectivist mentality which leads them to assume that society is a single entity that must be controlled and manipulated to achieve a particular goal.
As long as it advances their interests they revere corporate power.
It is comical to hear corporate elites and political puppets pontificate about the dangers of “disinformation” because for a very long time the media and power brokers have been the primary sources of misinformation. Isn’t it ironic that they are now suddenly concerned about the dissemination of misinformation when they have been doing it already?
[1]https://blacklistednews.com/article/81632/facebooks-new-cuttingedge-ai-supercomputer-will-be-used-to-censor-hate-speech-and.html
[2]https://www.reuters.com/technology/instagram-launches-feature-tackle-hate-speech-abuse-2021-04-21/
[3]https://justthenews.com/nation/technology/prior-removing-transgender-critical-book-amazon-changed-policies-ban-books-hate