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Conservative comedian Steven Crowder filed notice last week of a lawsuit against YouTube, claiming, This is the big one, boys and girls.

Crowders May 14 filing follows his second strike in as many months. In March, YouTube demonetized Crowders channel and issued hisfirst demerit of 2021on grounds that one of his videos contained COVID-19misinformation. In April, Crowderearned strike two under the pretext ofharassment and cyberbullying.

One more infraction in the designated 90-day window and he will be permanently cut off from his 5 million YouTube followers.

Crowder is polemicalhe is, after all, a comedianbut hisundue scrutinyignores a morass of unpunished violations that proliferate on YouTube all around him.

If the coronavirus misinformation standard were applied consistently, Dr. Anthony Faucisannouncementin March 2020 that there is no reason to [walk] around with a mask would have been struck from the platform during the height of the pandemic.

If the harassment and cyberbullying standard were applied uniformly to comparable accounts, left-of-center comedian Bill Mahersgleeover billionaire businessman David Kochs death would no longer be searchable on Mahers shows channel.

Other platforms are just as guilty.

Thetweetsof Irans supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, remain active despite Twitterssuppression of informationon the New York Posts Hunter Biden-Ukrainestory.

Drug cartels advertiseon Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Chinese Communist Partly spokesmen churn outwokeandcritical race theory-infused propagandaon a regular basis.AntifaandBlack Lives Matterglorify political violence, andfigureheadswhodelegitimizefree and fair elections, such as Stacey Abrams, retain blue-check status.

As such, conservative voices like Crowders should not besacrificed on the altar of Big Tech.

Yet, the fight is not about Crowder. Instead, itsa crisis of the tech titans own making. Inconsistent enforcement of vague rules, the opacity of content-moderation practices, and a lack of recourse are the hallmarks of Big Tech today.

Crowders latest legal move points to a broader, more pernicious trend taking hold in Silicon Valley and beyond. (Hes threatened tofilesuit against Big Tech before, as recently as February.)

The evolution proceeded slowly at first. When platformsbannedgratuitous-chaos agents, such as Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos, many conservatives were reluctant to defend them, even on principle. Now, social media companies are sprinting away with the goal posts.

What began as an effort to ban fringe outlets such as Jones Infowars has rapidly expanded to the restriction of traditional, conservative views.

Can pro-life group Live Action post onPinterest? No. What of Ryan Andersons conservative take on gender identity in his 2019 book When Harry Became Sally?Bootedfrom Amazon. The Northern Virginia Tea Party was even acasualtyof email delivery service Mailchimps misinformation policy early this year.

Similarly, non-conservatives such asCanadian free speech activist Lindsay Shepherd, who refused to conform to todays woke litmus tests, are in many tech companies crosshairs.

Such censorship of mainstream voices reveals the pitfalls of allowing these platforms to determine what is legitimately fringe, not to mention truth itself.

Its clear that if left unchecked, these companies and their employees will continue to narrow the bounds of acceptable discourseon one side of the political spectrum only.

Americans can and should hit back. Its past time for concrete, actionable solutions.

Proposals, likethoseworking their way through state legislatures across the country, must empower the public to hold these companies accountable for their disproportionate application of their own standards.

In tandem, Congress should address sweeping Section 230 protections through focusedreform.

But most importantly, conservatives should amplify efforts to invigorate a genuinely competitive market withalternativesandtechnical solutionsat all levels of the tech stack.

Restoring the balance of power between the tech companies and their users is an experiment worth conducting. Its only our culture of free expression thats at stake.

This piece originally appeared in The Daily Signal.

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Steven Crowder Is Suing YouTube Over Vague Rules, but It's Not Just About Him - Heritage.org