Free Speech Is On The Ballot In 2024 | Bobby Burack

Free speech is on the ballot.

With some 60 days until the election, it is remarkably clear that the Democratic Party has put our foremost right as Americans in jeopardy.

Last week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg issued a letter to the House Judiciary Committee admitting that the Biden-Harris administration pressured Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram) in 2021 to censor COVID-related content that it deemed "disfavorable" to the White House.

Despite the response, Zuckerberg's admission was far from a revelation. It was an update. The administration's relationship with major U.S. tech companies is hardly a secret.

In August 2022, Biden's former press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the White House had sent Facebook a list of "problematic" posts. A month later, Facebook announced it had removed over 20 million pieces of COVID "misinformation," including posts that doubted that mRNA vaccines and mask mandates would successfully stop the spread – which neither did as advertised.

The Biden-Harris administration had equal, if not greater, influence over Twitter before Elon Musk's purchase of the platform in 2022. Musk released a series of internal documents during an exposé called #TwitterFiles that revealed frequent communications between formerly high-ranking executives and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Several of the communications cited directed Twitter to remove posts that reflected negatively on Biden and Harris. 

Twitter, on behalf of DNC officials, also engaged in "visibility filtering" (best known as "shadow-banning") that downgraded the reach of popular right-wing accounts, such as Libs of TikTok, Dan Bongino, and Charlie Kirk.

The entire Democratic apparatus is involved. 

Last November, a House Judiciary Committee filing discovered "hundreds" of reports showing how government agencies assisted in the creation of a secret "disinformation" group that asked social media companies to "censor true information, jokes, and political opinions." The committee's pressure disproportionately resulted in the de-platforming of information negative toward Democrats on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

One cannot overstate the significance of government-influenced censorship. The First Amendment exists to prevent the precise type of behavior in which Democrats are engaging. Yet, the party found a workaround to fulfill its totalitarian fantasies by strong-arming private companies to censor critics on its behalf.

Last week, former Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy explained how the White House was able to gain near uncontested control over private tech companies by threatening to undo Section 230 of the Communications Act, which protects tech platforms from liability for what users post.

"The White House was telling Zuckerberg if you don't silence our political critics, we are gonna take away Section 230," Kennedy relayed to Tucker Carlson. "Zuckerberg was terrified."

Every tech leader is terrified. As a practical matter, a social media platform could not exist without immunity. The Democratic Party understands that.

So, regardless of Zuckerberg's letter, government-ordered censorship will continue if these Democrats remain in power. The party's ultimatum is clear: control what we say, or else. 

And in some cases, "who" can say anything at all.

Brendan Carr, the Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission of the United States, surmised over the weekend about what's behind the new-found infatuation with censorship.

"The debate over free speech and censorship is a very good proxy for the broader contest between freedom and authoritarianism," Carr posted on X. "When someone tells you where they stand on free speech, they’ve told you just about everything you need to know about their position on government power."

Kamala Harris and Democratic members of Congress have told us exactly where they stand on free speech. As of publication, not one prominent member of the party who supports Harris has denounced censorship. In fact, several Democrats have shown open disdain toward Elon Musk over his mission to restore free speech on the internet.

Specifically, Tim Walz's Minnesota attorney general, Keith Ellison, just last week wrote a thank-you message to Brazil for banning X. 

"Obrigado Brasil!" Ellison posted.

Ellison's statement is emblematic of the Democratic Party at large, salivating with jealousy that a South American nation was able to successfully block its residents from access to a platform that does not police or control their thoughts.

Voting for Harris-Walz sends a direct message that Americans are okay with censorship. No American should ever be okay with censorship. Free speech is what allows us to find the truth. Without the truth, we are nothing more than ignorant NPCs who march to the beat of our dear leaders.

Imagine if the only facts available were the "facts" that the people in charge made available. That was the case for much of the pandemic, when various doctors were silenced for offering dissenting opinions. 

"Legions of doctors stayed quiet after witnessing the demonization of their peers who challenged the Covid orthodoxy. A little censorship leads people to watch what they say. Millions of patients and citizens were deprived of important insights as a result," stated Wall Street journalist Bret Swanson in an op-ed titled "Covid censorship proved to be deadly."

Americans were afraid to tell the truth. They are still afraid. 

According to Pew Research, roughly three-quarters of Americans believe media sites will censor them if they post political opinions that challenge the preferred narrative.

Fears like that are why free speech was established as the first of 27 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Free speech is the core tenet of a democracy. We cannot, by definition, call ourselves a democracy if the most powerful communication companies in the nation police speech at the behest of a political party.

Say what you will about Donald Trump. He may be brash and undisciplined. However, he has never once used political power to undermine your freedom to nonviolently say exactly what you think.

You may hate his mean tweets, but at least you are allowed to say you hate them without consequences. 

Fundamentally, no issue on the ballot ought to unite voters more than the fight against censorship. Censorship is the most existential threat ordinary Americans face today. While policies related to the border, tax breaks, and fracking are critical to the country's state, they are still just policies. 

Free speech is not a policy. Free speech is a right. It is our most important right. 

And that right, along with our freedom, is on the ballot in November.

Follow Bobby Burack on X here.