While the company didn’t authorize those radical actions, who’s to say in the future they (or Apple) won’t ban certain people from using their phones? When you activate a smartphone you “agree” to the terms and conditions, even though hardly anyone actually reads them. Those terms also say the manufacturer can change the terms at any time, so what’s to stop them from adding a clause that says they reserve the right to brick your phone (or computer) if they feel you’re engaging in certain kinds of behavior or speech that they find objectionable? Perhaps Google didn’t want the publicity and the backlash of sabotaging the President of the United States’ cellphone, but what’s to stop them from doing it to people who aren’t as powerful or well known?
How far will the Silicon Valley titans go to stamp out vocal critics of the radical Leftists’ agenda? Will video editing software companies deactivate their software on people’s computers if they don’t like the content people are creating? Will Photoshop not sell their software to artists who are making the “wrong” kind of memes? Or will Microsoft and Apple refuse to license their operating systems on the computers (or smartphones) of political activists, social media personalities, or authors they consider racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, etc.?
Or maybe their local ISP [Internet Service Provider] won’t even allow them to have an Internet connection or will start blocking certain websites.106 What if Priceline or Orbitz decides not to sell you a plane ticket because they refuse to do business with “hateful” people? Or if Enterprise decides they won’t rent you a car. Or a popular gas station chain won’t sell you gas? What if a major grocery store chain decides they won’t sell you any food? If Visa or Mastercard blacklist you, then you won’t even be able to have a debit card. If no banks will allow you to have an account, how can you cash your paycheck?
In the Bible, a prophecy in the Book of Revelation says that one day “no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name,” warning that people who don’t worship the counterfeit Christ will be completely cut off economically from the modern world. It appears we are beginning to see the justifications for such widespread bans by those who control the backbone of the financial system.
Section 230 of the CDA
Technically, private companies can ban people from their platforms as long as it’s not because of their race, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability, country of origin, or other legally “protected” class. But political affiliation is not a protected class, and companies could legally ban all Republicans if they wanted to. Laws and regulations are always many years behind innovation, and the framers of the legislation governing our communication infrastructure could have never imagined the emergence of social media, let alone how instrumental of a role it would come to play in our lives.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton in order to overhaul the rules and regulations governing communication systems in response to the development of the Internet. Within the Act was a subsection called the Communications Decency Act, and Section 230 of the law granted immunity to Internet Service Providers, Domain Registrars, and website hosting services so if customers use these services in ways that violate copyright laws (or criminal statutes), the companies themselves are not liable for the legal consequences because they are not deemed publishers, but platforms, and are not responsible what their customers are posting.
In other words, if someone posts an episode of The Big Bang Theory television show on their YouTube channel, YouTube is not responsible for that person violating CBS’s copyright (as long as YouTube would promptly remove the infringing video if notified by CBS.) Because YouTube provides a service (i.e. the “platform”) to the public, they can’t necessarily prevent people from using that service to post copyrighted material, so they are given “safe harbor” and are immune from any civil or criminal penalties when their users break the law.
Section 230 of the CDA also granted immunity to Internet Service Providers and interactive websites if third party users post defamatory information about someone,107 death threats,108 or even if they sell fake merchandise on eBay, meaning eBay is not responsible, only the person posting the fake listing is.
Today, many Big Tech companies are abusing their immunity granted to them by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act by censoring certain users and posts and deciding themselves what to delete from their platforms, when that content is not violating any laws. They are now acting as publishers, not platforms, because they are making editorial decisions about what will and will not be allowed. If a person posts something that doesn’t violate any laws, then why should the social media companies have the right to take it down if they are in the business of offering a platform for (supposedly) anyone to use?
Currently there is a loophole in section 230 that allows for what it calls “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable content.”109 So they interpret “objectionable” content as being facts or opinions that hurt people’s feelings or undermine the liberal agenda.
Further evidence that section 230 of the CDA is outdated and unfair can be seen by the fact that a court ruled that President Trump can’t block people on Twitter after several trolls who he had blocked found a law firm that sued the President on their behalf.110 The court ruled that Trump can’t block people on social media because it “deprives them of access to official Presidential statements,” and his feeds are considered a “public square.” This begs the question, why is Facebook, Twitter and YouTube allowed to deprive citizens access to that same public square?
If the President of the United States can’t “deprive” someone of access to his statements on social media, why should the tech companies be allowed to do that to ordinary citizens? Facebook and Twitter are basically the modern day equivalent of a telephone, or post office. They’ve become an intimate and crucial part of billions of people’s lives. It’s how friends and families communicate with each other, and share photos and videos. It’s where they send out party invitations and look up old childhood friends or family members they’ve lost touch with. It’s how they get their news and see what the President is saying.
Imagine the phone company canceling your service because they didn’t like what you and your friends talked about. That’s essentially what Facebook and other social media platforms are doing today when they suspend people, delete their posts, or ban them completely because of what they say when their statements are not crimes, but just a “controversial,” “divisive,” or “hateful” point of view.
The power these mega corporations have over how billions of people on the planet communicate with each other is staggering. And the fact that they are working in concert together to enforce their arbitrary and bias “terms of service” to silence certain people and points of view is beyond horrifying. As George Washington said, “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”111
Author’s Note: Please take a moment to rate and review this book on Amazon.com, or wherever you purchased it from if you’re reading the e-book, to let others know what you think. This also helps to offset the trolls who keep giving my books fake one-star reviews when they haven’t even read them.
Almost all of the one-star reviews on Amazon for my last two books “The True Story of Fake News” and “Liberalism: Find a Cure” are from NON-verified purchases which is a clear indication they are fraudulent hence me adding this note.