Social Media Censorship Continues

I’m actually afraid to write this rant. I hate that because I should not be afraid of writing my opinion and sharing it. Yet, here I am, afraid to rant on my opinion of social media censorship. I know I have written on this subject before, but I feel the need to say more.

Examples of Social Media Censorship

In the past year, we have seen several large examples of censorship in the social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Both platforms censored and removed ex-president Donald Trump in the last days of his presidency. Their excuse for doing this was that he incited violence resulting in the Capitol Hill invasion. I disagree that Trump incited the violence, but that is not what I’m here to discuss.

In another example of censorship, the platforms removed a news story regarding Hunter Biden calling it fake news. I don’t know about you, but I have seen plenty of fake news on the platforms. Yet they do not remove that news. Honestly, I tend not to believe most of what I see on Facebook or Twitter unless I have done research into the story.

My Opinion

While I agree that using social platforms to encourage, incite, or start violence is despicable. Sometimes I think it needs to be regulated. Then I start to wonder who could regulate it fairly. In my opinion, nobody. We all have opinions and preferences that would affect it.

Not to mention this thing called free speech. In this day and age, people argue about restricting speech. I have to disagree. The government should not be able to regulate what we say. They should not have the authority to throw us in jail for what we say. That is ridiculous. Everyone should be allowed to speak their minds.

Parents Versus Government

Parents should teach their children how to have discussions with opposing points of view. They should teach them how to do this showing respect for the other person and not attack them personally.

The government needs to stay out of conversations. If the conversations lead to actions that break the law, then they step in. The charge to teach children how to speak respectfully belongs to the parents, not the government or social media.

Reasons to Stop Social Media Censorship

Social Media platforms already have in place documents that what people say on their platforms does not reflect or indicate acceptance of what they write. So why do they need to censor? In fact, I would think the government would prefer they didn’t. They could use these platforms to watch for planning of illegal activity.

Think about it. Allow people to say what they wish on the platforms. If someone starts a conversation, page or anything that indicates planning violence or lawbreaking they could contact the proper authorities. The authorities then could monitor the conversation.

The whole point of the social media platform is to allow people to communicate. Yet when they start censoring they take away our ability to communicate. We can’t share opinions or discuss differing viewpoints. We can’t learn or share. Then, we become no better than animals.

Stop the Censoring

The censorship needs to stop. Let people have opinions and share them. If I had more people that read my words, I would be more afraid of being censored. Yet, my small numbers allow me a little more freedom. The big social media companies ignore me. Still, I hope those that read this will fight for our right to speak on any platform, in person, or online. Don’t let the opinions of social media companies direct our thoughts. We all deserve the right to have a say.