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Youve probably never heard of Robert B. Strassler. Thats OK, youre not alone.

Early in his career, Strassler worked in oil fields, but he always had an interest inthe classics(the formal designation for the studies of ancient Greek and Roman civilizations). Eventually, Strasslers hobby became an obsession. He went so far as to author his own translation of Thucydides, the Athenian historian of the Peloponnesian War.

The problem was nobody wanted to read Strasslers book. This was in the 1990s. It was more difficult to publish to the web and there was no social media. Strassler approached every Ivy League institution he could find. Nobody was interested in reading a manuscript about Thucydides penned by an oilman with no formal credentials. That was the situation until Strassler contacted Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist professor in Fresno, California. Hanson agreed to look at the manuscript and was astounded by Strasslers work: a brilliant, highly readable translation of Thucydides including maps, diagrams, and charts. Hanson helped the disconnected oilman get in touch with a literary agent. Strasslers landmark edition became the standard translation of Thucydides. Still read today, The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War is as successful as any book on the classics can bein the age of Twitter.

Those of us who take the idea of democratic publishing seriously rejoice at how the field has opened to include anyone who has something to say and is willing to write it down. Thats why we should be more alarmed when we see social media companies crowd the spaces once occupied by blogs and do-it-yourself content creators. We see a decline in diverse opinions as the web quickly becomes less free and more autocratic.

How many Robert B. Strasslers are being stifled today by biased algorithms and arbitrary community guidelines?

In March, as COVID-19 exploded into a worldwide panic, the web gatekeepers weve come to rely on quickly massed around a singular interpretation of events andstifled dissenting voiceseven mild ones.

YouTube, the second largest search engine in the world, demonetized all videos that mentioned COVID-19, Coronavirus, or any term related to the pandemic, and herded viewers away from content creators and toward the Center for Disease Control (CDC) the sameCDC that first advisedagainstwearing masks. Even medical practitioners who deviated slightly from the prevailing visionwere removed from the platformafter gaining millions of views.

Experienced journalists who questioned official decrees (surely, the role journalists are expected to perform) were targeted with hit pieces and character assassination by their own peers.

As author/professor Cal Newport noted in anop-ed forWired, much of the dissenting viewpoints and on-the-ground data have become part of the mainstream conversation even after being suppressed by a small group of decision-makers:

We dont necessarily want to trust engineers at one company to make the decisions about what topics the public should and should not be able to read about.

How many times have you clicked on a link in a tweet and received a message as shown in the following screenshot?

Adults should be trusted to determine what kind of content is harmful (if such a thing exists) without the assistance of Twitter employees and their partners. And, are these warnings actually meant to protect people or simply to shield Twitter from corporate liability? I think we can guess what the answer is.

Its not only those without official-sounding credentials who are being barred from sharing content. Creators who clearly have experience in their fields of study are also facing arbitrary censorship.

The Great Courses Plus, a streaming service that produces college-level video courses taught by actual professors, was threatened with a ban from Google if they did not remove COVID-19-related content from their app. In an email to subscribers, the team wrote:

Google informed us they would ban The Great Courses apps if we continued to make [Covid-19] in-app content available. We are working with Google to ensure that they understand our content is factual, expert-led, and thoroughly vetted, so that we can remedy this misunderstanding as soon as possible.

The videos in question included content from Dr. Roy Benaroch, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Emory University School of Medicine; Dr. David Kung, Professor of Mathematics at St. Marys College of Maryland; and Dr. Kevin Ahern, Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Oregon State University. How or why these scholars were found unworthy of Googles imprimatur is a mystery. As the public does not presume to give Google programming advice, perhaps Google could return the favor by not pretending to be experts on epidemiology, immunology, and virology.

The only way to see these offending videos is on the Great Courses website, where Googles authority is not absolute. It happens to be a WordPress-powered site. For intellectuals and laymen who value free expression, having your own website is becoming the only way to make sure you can keep it.

The problem of pitting credentials against experience in a zero-sum conflict is fixable, and WordPress is a big part of the solution.

WordPress allows capable scientists, economists, and medical professionals in other fields to write at length about their ideas without fear of being blocked by arbitrary restrictions. Also, the five-minute install (which does take a little more than five minutes for many people) imposes enough of a barrier to entry to discourage cranks.

We like to think of the internet as a true egalitarian system, where every voice is given equal consideration, but deep down we know thats not exactly how it works. Network effects tend to form hubs of concentrated influence around a handful of websites. This isnt always a bad thing. A recipe blog with poor taste and no pictures deserves fewer readers than a blog with great-tasting recipes and high-resolution images.

There is still room enough in the network for certain nodes to grow in size and influence based on the quality of their content. A node with enough backlinks, good organic search rankings, and high-quality content will gain an audience, and be able to keep it, without fear of corporate reprisals or aggressive algorithm updates.

If we really care about democratizing publishing, we wont always like what we read. There will be disagreements, but democracy requires a literate population eager for debate. We can challenge, discuss, and learn.

There are a lot of Robert B. Strasslers out there in the network, waiting patiently to be heard.

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Bringing Back Blogs in the Age of Social Media Censorship - WP Tavern

The glitter of Botswanas shining example of democracy is fading as the country of 2.3-million people slowly slides towards authoritarianism.

The trend began under former president Ian Khama, who silenced critical media and cowed citizens into apathy. His term in office ended in April 2018.

Early indications that his successor, Mokgweetsi Masisi vice-president for four years had a penchant for intolerance was evinced in the run-up to the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) congress in April 2019 when he openly thwarted his rival, Pelonomi Venson-Moitois incipient challenge for the party presidency.

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a further centralisation of power: Parliament recently passed an emergency bill that gives Masisi sweeping powers to rule by decree for a six-month period.

It was bulldozed by the majority BDP despite opposition protests that putting power in the hands of one man will breed corruption and infringe on the powers of other branches of government.

On April 9, Botswanas government endorsed a six-month state of emergency.

The country was also placed under a 28-day lockdown, due to end on April 30. The lockdown was extended to May 7, and is now being gradually eased. To date, Botswana has reported one death and 23 cases of people infected with Covid-19.

The only explanation Masisi and his government have given, albeit vaguely, to the need for the lengthy state of emergency is that the Public Health Act is too weak to staunchly enforce a lockdown.

One alarming provision of the presidents emergency powers is the introduction of a prison term of up to five years or a $10 000 fine for anyone publishing information with the intention to deceive the public about Covid-19 or measures taken by government to address the virus.

Critics say the law, with broad and vague definitions, is a gift to authoritarian leaders who want to use the public health crisis to grab power and suppress freedom of speech.

Masisis backers argue that the law is needed as a deterrent. It has become necessary to curtail some rights to prevent the spread of the virus, said BDP spokesperson Kagelelo Banks Kentse.

There are well-grounded fears that the emergency powers will be used to extend the government grip on supposedly independent institutions. Already there are concerns that the security forces are meting outheavy-handed justice in the name of enforcing the lockdown.

Two police officers in central Botswana are facing assault charges and a schoolteacher was arrested after challenging the governments claim that a health worker who was screening lawmakers during a heated parliamentary debate on the state of emergency had tested positive for Covid-19.

On his Facebook page, the teacher, Rakkie Kelesamile, also questioned why people infected with Covid-19 inhospital were not developing further complications or recovering. It takes five days for corona to manifest in its victim. We are in the 14th day of lockdown. Common sense says patients should be showing signs of infection.

Police say Kelesamiles arrest is part of a larger effort to crack down on alleged misinformation under section 30 of the Emergency Powers Act.

His lawyer, Kgosietsile Ngakaagae believes that the government is trying to criminalise the airing of opinions. The interpretation of freedom of speech is wrong, he said. Making personal observation should not be criminalised.

Days earlier, police had arrested Justice Motlhabane, the spokesperson of Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF), an opposition party with ties to Khama for degrading and maligning the leadership.

The charges were labelled worrying by the Botswana Federation of Public, Private and Parastatal Sector Unions.They were also not brought under the Emergency Powers Act, but under the countrys Penal Code. Under the code, Motlhabane faces a potential fine of $50 or around P600.

Motlhabane and Oratile Dikologang are accused of suggesting on a Facebook page, Botswana Trending News, that Masisi had declared a lengthy state of emergency so that he could deal with his political rivals and business competitors.

A police spokesperson, assistant commissioner Dipheko Motube, said that all three men had published an offensive statement against the government as well as degrading and maligning the leadership of the country.

Motlhabane, who is out on bail, denied the charges, saying he does not have access to the Facebook account. He told INK Centre that the police gave him electrical shock treatment on several occasions while demanding certain information about a coup by the former president [Ian Khama].

They placed a Taser on my buttock and in between my thighs, he claimed. Biggie Butale, his lawyer and president of BPF, said the police do not have a case against his client.

He is not the administrator of the Facebook account in question, he said, adding: Police never questioned him over Covid-19 they asked him about a coup. You wonder what they are looking for.

Several other people have been charged under the Emergency Powers Act.

A South African woman, Charmaine Ibrahim, appeared before court on March 27 for alleging that two fellow South Africans in Botswana have tested positive for Covid-19. Ibrahim has since been released on bail.

One lawyer, Mboki Chilisa, commented on social media that there is no point in punishing innocuous false statements which no right-thinking member of the public could ever believe.

The Emergency Powers Act also risks worsening the already adversarial relationship between the government and private media. The Act prohibits journalists from using source(s) other than the [Botswana] Director of Health Services or the World Health Organisation when reporting on Covid-19. Journalists who use other sources potentially face a fine of $10 000 or a five-year jail term.

The executive director of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Botswana Chapter), Tefo Phatshwane believes that the emergency prohibits independent journalists from holding those in power to account.He said Masisi has started a censorship pandemic, using wide-ranging restrictions as a cover to violate freedom of expression. As journalists, we cant rely on a government that we are expected to police.

If the coronavirus outbreak has taught us anything beyond the necessity of washing our hands, it is that its victim has been leadership. Bureaucracy and incompetence have made it difficult to trust the WHO and governments worldwide.

On March 21, Masisi, who has a penchant for air travel, defied the lockdown to fly to Windhoek to witness the swearing in of Namibian President Hage Geingob.He insisted that the trip was essential to enable leaders to discuss strategies to combat Covid-19.

Government also botched the handling of the death of Botswanas first, and currently only, victim of Covid-19.A local newspaper reported that the funeral of the elderly woman, from Ramotswa in the south-east of the country was not handled in a manner consistent with guidelines for the burial of victims.Government admitted days later that she had died of the disease.

It is tempting to demand prompt action to combat those who undermine national and global efforts to combat the pandemic through disinformation. But Ngakaagae insists censorship should not be part of the cure.

Government should identify the most efficient responses and communicate them to the public and allow reasonable and genuinely held opinions to flourish. Government has to engage the public in dialogue, he said.

Joel Konopo works for the INK Centre for Investigative Journalism

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Censorship, the unexpected side-effect of Covid-19 - Mail and Guardian

The National Posts Jonathan Kay recently interviewed American author Dave Rubin, whose tour for his new book, Dont Burn This Book: Thinking for Yourself in the Age of Unreason, was disrupted by the ongoing pandemic, and is now being done out of Rubins garage.

Jonathan Kay: Nice suit. Look what Im wearing. Thanks for making the rest of us look like crap.

Dave Rubin: I thought Id keep it professional, you know? Im on a book tour.

Kay: Whats it been like doing a book tour without actually touring?

Rubin: I got to tell you, its really bizarre, actually. The book came out on Tuesday, April 28, and I was supposed to be in New York the week before, doing all kinds of press, going on every TV show you can imagine and meeting with the publishers and all that good stuff. And then I was supposed to be on a book tour starting that night. We were gonna be at the Gramercy Theater in New York. And then I think I was going to be in D.C. and then across the country for the next month and a half or so. And instead, Im in my garage. I mean, this is my garage. I happened to have a studio in my garage. So its kind of funny. Were seeing all these CNN anchors in their kitchens, in their living rooms and things. I was a little ahead on the home studio thing. So Ive got a nice professional setup here, which is great. And, you know, theres a certain convenience to it that I can do this all from here. But I guess it is missing a little something. Talking to a live person always adds a little something else to the conversation. But Ive enjoyed this. And in many ways its allowed me to do more than I was going to be able to do because I can basically just, every day for the last four or five days, Im starting in the morning. I started literally at 6 a.m. and I go till about 8 p.m., with just minor minor breaks and maybe lunch, if Im lucky. So, you know, Im happy to talk to people. Im glad the books being well received. And you do what you gotta do.

Kay: You write that your original book idea was about how you abandoned the left side of the political spectrum and then you decided you had a more interesting idea. Tell me about that.

Rubin: Yeah. The original title of the book was Why I Left the Left, which is the title of a very popular PragerU video that I did that has about 20 million views or so. I became sort of a left the left guy. I talk about the regressive left and that the left is no longer liberal.

Thats very much in the mix, the stew of things that Ive been talking about for the last five years or so. And I started writing that book. And then I quickly realized I was like, you know, I dont know if I want to write a book about just what Im against or what I used to be. I want to write a book about what Im for. And thats what it became: Dont Burn This Book. But I lay out three moments in the book that were my seminal wake up moments.

I wont give you all three. Ill give you one of them. You may know David Webb, who is a commentator, conservative commentator on Sirius XM Patriot Channel. He guest hosts on Fox News all the time. And years ago when I was a lefty, I was on the Young Turks. We were watching a clip of Fox News and David Webb came on and suddenly they were saying all the worst things about him. He was just talking about some basic conservative beliefs. Doesnt even matter what he was talking about specifically. But suddenly they were calling him an Uncle Tom and a sellout and a race traitor. Just all of the worst things that you could say about somebody. And what they didnt know was that a few years before I had had a show on Sirius XM and although I was a lefty and David Webb was on the right, wed met in the hall one day and we started chatting. I used to go on his show every week and wed debate topics and then wed go downstairs and have a steak and have some whisky. And we were good, even though we disagreed on almost everything. But I knew him to be a good man and forthright and a passionate advocate for his positions.

It wasnt some fake thing. And yet here the Young Turks were, the supposed tolerant people, the people who loved diversity. And they were suddenly seeing a black man. And just because he didnt think the way they want black people to think he was the bad guy. He was all the worst things you could say about somebody. And because I knew him, it suddenly became so stark, so clear to me that when we think of racism, we think, oh, that youre racist. You dont want those people using a water fountain, something like that, which obviously is racist. But theres a new pernicious racism, which is that you say youre for groups gays, blacks, women.

But you cant be for whole groups because, believe it or not, black people think all sorts of different things. Gay people think all sorts of different things. Women think all sorts of different things. And to watch a group of supposedly tolerant people be angry at a black man who just thought differently than them, I realized was a new sort of systemic racism. And I say systemic because its sort of spread throughout all of the left. And even right now, Harvard discriminates against Asian people because they had too many Asian people by their measure being admitted to the university.

What the left does is they see racism almost everywhere except where it really is. They're looking for it constantly. So they have to find it.

Dave Rubin

Kay: But what about the counterargument that theres still a lot of old-fashioned racism thats still around.

Rubin: I dont see that now. Thats not to say that there isnt a KKK. There are some marginal white supremacist groups or the Westboro Baptist Church or something like that, which dont have any mainstream traction, because anytime they do any stupid little thing that, of course, the media goes crazy with it. Does David Duke exist? Of course. David Duke exists. Does he have any influence in any way whatsoever? Of course not. So I dont see actual influential bigotry out of the conservative side or on the right. But I do see it almost everywhere on the left. The left has become obsessed with identity, obsessed with gender and sexuality and the colour of skin. And I wouldnt even call that reverse racism. I would call that racism. If you rail all day long against white Christian men because theyre white Christian men, thats racism.

Again, Im not saying that there are no racist people on either side of the political aisle. Of course there are. But I think what the left does is they see racism almost everywhere except where it really is. Theyre looking for it constantly. So they have to find it. And just because you believe in low taxes doesnt mean youre a racist. Just because you believe that America should have a strong border, doesnt mean youre a racist.

These movements, they get equality, but then they the activists don't want to go out of business. So then they have to just keep finding new and new perceived oppression.

Dave Rubin

Kay: Your book is partly about what you call the pitfalls of leaving the left. What are those pitfalls?

Rubin: The biggest growing political movement or political ideology in America right now is the disaffected liberal, which is what I would say that I am I am a true liberal. And I lay out what classical liberalism is, which, of course, is about individual rights, meaning everyone that is a legal citizen of any country should be treated equally under the law. And then basically laissez-faire economics, light touch. Thats pretty much what my belief system is. Thats live and let live. And we could talk about the marginal differences between that and libertarianism.

As far as the pitfalls, well, I lay out some of the things that I guarantee will happen to you if you leave the left or not even leave the left once you start questioning it. Because if you remember four or five years ago when I started talking about my frustrations with the left, I was always saying we. I was saying we guys, we the left have abandoned liberalism. We have to fix liberalism. We have to stand for the things that were supposed to stand for, like free speech and open inquiry and not deplatforming speakers and destroying people. These are liberal principles. So I was doing this from the left. And what I think a lot of people see right now is that Im trying to give them the courage, I suppose, to be able to walk and not be destroyed once you pick one position that is counter to whatever mainstream leftist orthodoxy is of the day.

If you dont check all of those 10 boxes, they will eliminate you and they will try to mob you on social media. They will go after your employer. You will watch friends and family members turn on you and call you all of the worst things. And even if you say no, those are none of my beliefs. Well, then theyll move the goalposts and try to extrapolate something else on you. One of the very important tips that I give people is dont apologize unless you genuinely have done something wrong. Im not saying never apologize. Weve all wronged people. Weve all done things that are wrong. So you can apologize if its earnest. But I think a lot of times that we see this when the mob comes after celebrities all the time, you know, a celebrity will say something that everyone knows is basically right. You may remember Mario Lopez said that we shouldnt be something to the effect of we shouldnt be transitioning kids who are four years old, you know, gender transition. And its like everyone knows thats the truth. Thats not anti-trans. Its just that we might want to wait till theyre a little bit older. Then we could discuss all of that stuff. But he got mobbed. And then what does he do? He basically issues in a faux apology, even though we know he doesnt really apologize. He doesnt really feel any contrition about what he said.

Another one would be a Hollywood actor who Im sort of friendly with, Mark Duplass, he basically tweeted out something to the effect that Ben Shapiro is not the devil, he just has different political thoughts. He got mobbed and then deleted the tweet and issued an apology. And its like once you do that, once you apologize for something youre not sorry for, now theyve got their foot on your neck forever and you will never get up. And theyre using that power over you. So one of the things you can do is be brave and stand up for what you believe. And I think if more of us start doing it, we can actually silence that mob.

Kay: But political cults come from the right side of the spectrum, too, no?

Rubin: Lets not forget, it was mostly people on the right who were going after violent video games. Remember, they were trying to ban Mortal Kombat from the shelves. So these things are cyclical. And Im glad you brought it up because its an important point.

Kay: Were talking about censorship and preventing people from saying what they think. But its interesting that youre not talking about government censoring people which is what we would have been worried about 20 or maybe even 10 years ago. Instead, were talking about people censoring each other.

Rubin: We should always be wary of the government silencing dissent, silencing speech. But at the moment, I mean, Donald Trump can tweet whatever he wants and then what happens? The first hundred people that respond to him are usually blue check journalists or actors or activists, all telling him hes a Nazi, hes Hitler. Hes going to burn in hell. I mean, the worst things you can imagine. And guess what? Nobody knocks on their door. The Gestapo doesnt show up to drag them off to the gulag. I mean, theres no version of any of that. The bigger worry to me is that we are censoring ourselves. That is separate than the government. Its an important distinction.

Kay: Youre a gay man. Ive noticed, anecdotally, that many of the people pushing back against social-justice cultism are gay men, lesbians, Jews, Muslims people who have some trait that makes them stand out from ordinary white people. Do you think having at least some mark of outsider status gives you moral capital to push back?

Rubin: I love this question because Ive asked this of other guests of mine who are in similar situations. So Douglas Murray, the wonderful author from the U.K. whos written a lot about this and talked about immigration in Europe and all sorts of things. His last book, Madness of Crowds, is one of the best books of the year. He happens to be gay. Hes a gay conservative in the U.K. And Ive asked him about this. I see this from women. I see this from black people. It sort of gets to what I was saying earlier about why when you say youre for a group, you will actually crush all of the free thinkers within that group. And thats what Im trying to restore. Im trying to stop that from happening.

If youre a minority because of your sexuality or your skin colour or some of these things, now, I dont think that should give you power over people. I dont think that inherently makes your opinions correct. I mean, that would be absurd. As absurd as saying, you know, someone who is a white male, that his opinions are correct just because of that. So those are silly notions. But what I do think is probable is that if you are a minority of some sort, you start looking at the world from a bit of an outsider perspective. Youre not in the machine all the time. And because of that, you suddenly realize that uniqueness is deeply important. You realize there is something different.

So the most interesting example of this would be whats sort of happened to the gay community. I would say that for four decades, the gay community brought a tremendous amount of art and music and comedy and all of this cultural stuff that would start in gay clubs or whatever. I was never even into that scene at all. Much of this is before my time. But we all know that so much great music and all of this cultural stuff came from the gay community. Then, things shifted and the progressive movement sort of infiltrated the gay community. Im not saying, well, their intentions were bad. Gay marriage, by the way, is an extremely positive development that the progressives pushed because they were pushing for equality. But they were pushing for gay people to be equal, not to be above. And what happens usually is then these movements, they get equality, but then they the activists dont want to go out of business, sort of. So then they have to just keep finding new and new perceived oppression.

So what I think, unfortunately, has happened is the gay community, for whatever that term broadly means, they went from fighting for something. They went from being outsiders. And by the way, that comes with a lot of pain and all sorts of stuff. I mean, many gay people have written about this. And, you know, from my own experience, the pain and drugs and just doing stuff that I shouldnt have done, its just part of being closeted and the outsider and the rest of it. But you take that, then you get equality. And now thats great. Now things are good. But then the progressives move in and they kind of use you as a tool.

So if you notice, theres really nothing interesting coming out of the gay community these days. And that is to directly answer your question. That is why were watching so many gay people walk away (from progressive orthodoxy) right now. And by the way, its the exact same thing with the black community.

Kay: Youre an American. Do you find your political message resonates with Canadians? It used to be that a political writer like you was mostly a celebrity in your own country. But thanks to social media, things are much more global.

Rubin: It really, really does. Now, part of that I have to credit Jordan Peterson, obviously, because, you know, Jordan, whose origin he was a clinical psychologist in Toronto and professor at the University of Toronto, you know, hes sort of Canadas biggest export over the last couple of years, certainly intellectually their biggest export. And I toured with Jordan Peterson. We had many stops in Canada. Ive done some speaking events with Maxime Bernier from the Canadian Peoples party. And I do sense that there is a strong liberty movement growing in Canada. You know, as Justin Trudeau and the Liberals of Canada sort of extend their power. And I know you guys have all sorts of problems. You know, Western Canada and the Calgary area feeling that theyre sort of being left out from what the decision-making process is. I sense that there is a there is a strong liberty movement there. So we absolutely wonderful receptions in all of our Canadian stops. I love doing them. We had a running joke in every Canadian stop on the tour because I would moderate the Q-and-A at the end of the show. So the way the shows would work, I would do about 15 minutes of crowd warm-up. Jordan would give about an hour and a half speech and then we would do about 45 minutes of Q-and-A. And each time, somebody would ask if Jordan would run for prime minister and hed make you know, its a fun, silly comment about Trudeau. And it would always get a huge laugh. So I do sense that that there is a certain set of Canadians who are waking up to some of these more liberty or individual rights issues, which maybe isnt fully within the Canadian political ethos as much as it is within an American one.

But, yes, to your point. Look, were all on YouTube, were all podcasting. Were all doing all these things. And what is local is now everything. You know, its like everything is now local and whats local is now everything.

Kay: Thanks so much for joining us. Stay safe!

National Post

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Dave Rubin interview: His new book, censorship on the left and what he sees happening in Canada - National Post

"I promise you, one day you will say, first they came after conservatives, and I said nothing," opined Dennis Prager at a Senate hearing in July, invoking the famous Holocaust poem by Martin Niemller. In this case,theyrefers not to Nazis but to YouTube, which Prager contends is censoring his business. The right-leaning radio host runs Prager University, also known as PragerU, a nonprofit that publishes videos to YouTube, a Google subsidiary.

Prager sued the platform in 2019 after YouTube classified some of its videos in a way that hid them from the 1.5 percent of users who had opted into "restricted mode," which screens out content with mature themes.

While it's worth debating whether YouTube should handle political content identically to violent and sexually suggestive content, PragerU's suit argued that YouTube has become so large that it should now be treated as a public utility and thus prohibited from engaging in viewpoint discrimination. In a ruling issued in February, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit fundamentally rejected that argument. "PragerU runs headfirst into two insurmountable barriersthe First Amendment and Supreme Court precedent," wrote Circuit Judge M. Margaret McKeown, reminding the plaintiffs that the Constitution protects individuals only fromgovernmentcensorship.

PragerU found common ground on this issue with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (DHawaii), who sued Google for violating her First Amendment rights after it temporarily suspended her campaign advertising account following an especially compelling Democratic primary debate performance in June. (Google says the suspension was automatically triggered by its anti-fraud provision, which flags accounts with large changes in spending.)

Like PragerU, Gabbard argued that Google is a public utility and, as such, should be required to maintain neutrality. But as Judge Stephen Wilson of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California observed, the First Amendment has no bearing on decisions made by private businesses. "Google is not now, nor (to the Court's knowledge) has it ever been, an arm of the United States government," he wrote.

Gabbard and PragerU may very well be justified in railing against Google's content moderation methods. But they seem not to have considered the deleterious effects they might have had on the open internet if they had prevailed in court. It's possible that companies would start scrubbingmorecontent in an effort to avoid lawsuits alleging preferential treatment for certain viewpoints. Conversely, they might also forfeit their right to moderate content at all, which both Prager and Gabbard might change their mind on once companies lose the ability to remove porn.

Forcing Google to behave like a public utility would not be likely to serve the interests of those demanding that designation, to say nothing of the rest of us.

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Prager University and Tulsi Gabbard Lose Censorship Suits Against Google - Reason

It is time to draw a line. In the fight against Covid-19, people across the world have been required to suspend many hard-won freedoms to give up travel, loved ones, places of worship, the pub. They have gone along with it because they understand that some temporary restrictions on liberty are sometimes needed in times of crisis (even though we must ensure they do not become permanent). But one thing we cannot give an inch on is freedom of speech, our right to speak and our right to hear others, which is under serious threat right now.

An unholy alliance of corporate tech giants, government and international agencies is working to narrow the range of acceptable debate about coronavirus. Since the beginning of this crisis, officialdom has talked up the threat posed to containing Covid by an infodemic the World Health Organisations cute phrase for the spread of misinformation online. Social-media firms have been put under renewed pressure to expand their already extensive policies on what is and isnt acceptable content. And theyve been all too happy to oblige.

Take Facebook, home to around 2.6 billion monthly active users. During this crisis it has moved the goalposts dramatically on what can be posted. At first, it said it would continue to remove misinformation that could contribute to imminent physical harm, while deploying its army of fact-checkers to flag certain posts, depress their distribution, and direct sharers of such material to reliable information. Just a few weeks on and it is removing event posts for anti-lockdown protests in various US states, in tandem with state officials.

Last month it was revealed that Facebook had removed event pages for anti-lockdown protests in California, New Jersey and Nebraska. A spokesperson told Politico that Facebook reached out to state officials to understand the scope of their orders and resolved to remove the posts when gatherings do not follow the health parameters established by the government and are therefore unlawful, such as when protests intend to flout social-distancing rules.

Facebook has stressed that state governments did not ask them to remove specific posts. But what seems to have happened is almost worse. Facebook moderators appear to be banning events posts on the basis of what they reckon the laws of a particular state constitute. As David Kaye, UN special rapporteur on free expression, told the Guardian: If people show up to protest and I think the vast majority of public-health officials think thats really dangerous its up to the government to clamp down on them. For Facebook to do it just seems suspect.

Whats more, Kaye continued, this informal arrangement reached between Facebook and state governments will make it harder for citizens to challenge instances of censorship. If a state government were to issue a formal takedown notice to Facebook, asking it to remove a post for an illegal protest, then that government action would at least be subject to a challenge in court. But Facebook, a private company, is allowed to take down whatever it wants and is protected from legal liability.

This is, in effect, government outsourcing censorship to the private sector. Even if straightforward takedown requests arent being made, the increasingly cosy relationship between Big Tech, governments and intergovernmental organisations is leading to elite consensus effectively being enforced on social media. In a recent interview with CNN, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said her platform will remove anything that is medically unsubstantiated, as well as anything that goes against WHO [World Health Organisation] recommendations, essentially asserting this one UN agency as infallible and its critics as heretics.

As many have pointed out, this standard is almost impossible to enforce consistently not least because the WHO has got a fair bit wrong over the course of this pandemic, and in previous crises. But it seems YouTubes guidelines are now sufficiently broad that it can take down any dissident post that sparks outrage. It recently banned a viral video of two doctors, Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi, who run a group of urgent care centres in Bakersfield, California, discussing the data they have drawn from Covid testing, and arguing that California should lift its lockdown.

Experts and commentators have questioned the doctors claims and conclusions, and even their motivations (apparently one of them is a Trump supporter). But these two are not snarling conspiracy theorists. They are experienced medics giving their opinions on the data as they see it. But this apparently cannot be hosted on YouTube because, in the words of a spokesperson, it disputes the efficacy of local health authority recommended guidance on social distancing. It seems you cannot question the wisdom of the authorities at all.

As for the real snarling conspiracy theorists, theyve also been getting booted off platforms during this crisis. David Icke has been kicked off Facebook and YouTube, where hitherto he was allowed to promote his cobblers about lizard people, vaccines and Bill Gates relatively unmolested. But for spreading the conspiracy theory that 5G causes coronavirus, among other madcap corona ideas, he has been damned by the tech giants for spreading harmful disinformation. Inevitably, Icke and his supporters have taken this as vindication that, in his words, the elite are TERRIFIED.

Mad as these people are, the censorship of conspiracy theorists is a worrying development. For years, while Big Tech firms have expanded censorship in other areas, they have resisted clamping down on Icke and his ilk. As recently as March, Facebook said that claims that dont directly result in physical harm, like conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus would be fact-checked rather than censored. When Facebook banned Infowars Alex Jones in 2018 it was at pains to say that this was for glorifying violence and hate speech, not for spreading 9/11 or Sandy Hook conspiracy theories.

Social-media companies hesitancy in censoring conspiracy theories up to now was not out of any grand principle their policing of hateful speech is just as censorious. But notwithstanding the egotism and self-righteousness of Silicon Valley, you can understand why companies primarily interested in making money would be wary of moving more definitively into the role of pronouncing on what is and isnt true. Until now, it seems. That they hide behind the experts and reliable sources makes this no less problematic for free debate.

Facebook and YouTube now monopolise huge arenas of public discussion. Writers and thinkers unable to promote their work on Facebook, or videomakers unable to upload their work to YouTube, are effectively denied access to a significant portion of what now constitutes the public square. At a time when billions of people are under house arrest, and the literal public square is largely off-limits, this is an even more sinister development. As is the fact that governments and powerful organisations seem to be working hand in glove with tech firms to enforce conformity.

Covid-19 and the policies being pursued to tame it affect everyone. We must be free to question and debate all the issues this crisis raises, insisting that no one person or organisation has a monopoly on truth and that dangerous nonsense can be defeated in free debate. And we need to make sure we have a (relatively) free internet at the end of all this. That some firms are now helping to police offline protests, organised to oppose government policy, is a particularly alarming indication of how far Big Tech censorship has spread during this pandemic. We need to flatten the curve.

Tom Slater is deputy editor at spiked. Follow him on Twitter: @Tom_Slater_

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We need to stop the spread of Big Tech censorship - Spiked