by John Fredericks
Twitter has twice subjected the American people to the ignominy of seeing their own elected president censored for supposedly “glorifying violence.”
Legacy journalists, meanwhile, continue to brazenly promote violence without a hint of consequence.
For the Silicon Valley Tech giants who now control the social media landscape, hypocrisy knows no bounds.
When rioters tried to pull down Andrew Jackson’s statue in front of the White House last month and establish a lawless “autonomous zone” patterned after the one their comrades established in Seattle, President Trump put his foot down.
“There will never be an ‘Autonomous Zone’ in Washington, D.C., as long as I’m your President,” he tweeted. “If they try they will be met with serious force!”
As he sent out this message of support for American sovereignty, U.S. Park Service Police had already managed to prevent a deadly disaster like the one that unfolded in Seattle, acting with the utmost professionalism and employing no more force than was absolutely necessary.
Twitter, however, saw things differently. For the second time, the social media giant hid the President’s tweet, blocked users from “liking” or “replying” to it, and issued a statement condemning it for “glorifying violence.”
Seriously? Since when is protecting people and property from protestors and looters inciting violence? So destruction is ok, but seeking to stop is not?
Fast forward to last weekend. When pro-police Coloradans — including conservative author Michelle Malkin and radio host Randy Corporon — organized a “Back the Blue” rally in Denver, armed leftists stormed the demonstration, attacked participants, and bragged about “shutting it down” with their wanton violence.
On cue, fake news purveying journalists got on Twitter and claimed that the masked leftists assaulting people were merely engaged in “opposing speech,” and mocked conservatives for asking why the police didn’t protect them. For good measure, some even asked users to dox the Back the Blue participants for them.
Watch the videos. Do these journalists honestly believe pro-police demonstrators were “shut down” by “opposing speech?”
Of course they don’t. It’s quite obvious that they were shut down with violence — violence that the establishment Left approves of and heartily condones.
It’s part of a years-long pattern, pervasive in the media, of downplaying and justifying leftist violence by smearing their victims. They want conservatives to know that if they exercise their First Amendment rights, they will be attacked, that no one will protect them, and that they will be painted as the aggressors.
There is a simple way to describe what they’re doing here. It’s not “journalism.” It’s “glorifying violence.”
Incidentally, that glorification of left-wing political violence is absolutely First Amendment-protected speech, just as — equally clearly — were both of the President’s tweets and countless others like them that have been posted by conservatives everywhere.
Twitter decided to go all in last week too and shut off Donald Trump Jr.’s twitter handle – the President’s son.
Coincidently, I have been shut down twice in the last year for no apparent reason, other than I am Trump-Pence 2020 Virginia Delegation Chairman and served as Trump Virginia Chairman in 2016. I had to threaten a press conference both times to get turned back on. Fortunately, as a radio host I have a platform to fight back. Most do not.
Twitter — like the other tech giants that host the vast majority of political speech in modern America — has very publicly declared its intention to censor some constitutionally protected speech while allowing or even promoting other speech.
The disparate treatment of President Trump and pro-Antifa journalists shows definitively that the way Twitter evaluates speech has nothing to do with whether it “glorifies violence” and everything to do with which ideology — and political party — it benefits.
Social media censorship is dangerous. By labeling some protected speech as “glorifying violence,” or “hate,” and then looking the other way when similar language is used by their political allies, the tech giants are depriving the country of full and unfettered public discourse of the sort that the First Amendment was designed to protect. And they’re only ramping up their efforts as we get closer to the presidential election.
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John Fredericks is a syndicated morning radio talk show host heard in Washington D.C. and across Virginia.
Photo “John Fredericks” by The John Fredericks Radio Show.
