Anti-Communist riots in East Germany: An East Berliner throws stones at a Russian tank during the first violent resistance. By Everett Collection @ Shutterstock.com
At LewRockwell.com, Ron Paul, who has just had his own page censored by Facebook with no explanation, tells Americans that in a new era of Big Tech censorship, they must emulate the dissidents of Soviet Russia.
With no explanation other than “repeatedly going against our community standards,” @Facebook has blocked me from managing my page. Never have we received notice of violating community standards in the past and nowhere is the offending post identified. pic.twitter.com/EdMyW9gufa
— Ron Paul (@RonPaul) January 11, 2021
He writes (abridged):
Last week’s massive social media purges – starting with President Trump’s permanent ban from Twitter and other outlets – was shocking and chilling, particularly to those of us who value free expression and the free exchange of ideas. The justifications given for the silencing of wide swaths of public opinion made no sense and the process was anything but transparent. Nowhere in President Trump’s two “offending” Tweets, for example, was a call for violence expressed explicitly or implicitly
Those who continue to argue that the social media companies are purely private ventures acting independent of US government interests are ignoring reality.
Big Tech” long ago partnered with the Obama/Biden/Clinton State Department to lend their tools to US “soft power” goals overseas. Whether it was ongoing regime change attempts against Iran, the 2009 coup in Honduras, the disastrous US-led coup in Ukraine, “Arab Spring,” the destruction of Syria and Libya, and so many more, the big US tech firms were happy to partner up with the State Department and US intelligence to provide the tools to empower those the US wanted to seize power and to silence those out of favor.
So what is to be done? Even pro-free speech alternative social media outlets are under attack from the Big Tech/government Leviathan. There are no easy solutions. But we must think back to the dissidents in the era of Soviet tyranny. They had no Internet. They had no social media. They had no ability to communicate with thousands and millions of like-minded, freedom lovers. Yet they used incredible creativity in the face of incredible adversity to continue pushing their ideas.
Dr. Ron Paul is a former member of Congress and Distinguished Counselor to the Mises Institute.
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