“Those who stand for nothing fall for everything” - Alexander Hamilton
After Facebook’s Independent Oversight Committee‘s ban on Donald Trump expires within the next six months, will Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to extend or end it be motivated primarily by financial concerns rather than issues of truth and preserving our democratic-republic?
Facebook and Twitter took the correct action they did to muzzle the treasonous rantings of a loser who never takes responsibilities for his failed performances. Trump’s delusional bombasts on January 6th presented a clear and present danger to our democracy by undermining our electoral process. Until he is willing to denounce his unfounded claims of massive voter fraud, the ban should remain in place.
The virtuous idiom - “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” - is familiar to us all yet not one that social media platforms are apparently guided by to offset many posts on their platforms. Posts, that if not evil in and of themselves, are at least horrendously ugly in ways that threatens personal security and the socio-political fabric of our country.
The notion expressed by Trump cult adherents that freedom of speech is at issue here is a straw man argument. Consider their own efforts to silence Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney along with a few other Republicans wanting only to speak truth about the former President’s role that incited the January 6th insurrection on the nation’s Capitol.
Free speech concerns shouldn’t prevent social media platforms from banning those who deliberately spread malicious rumors and outright lies. It’s a standard practice for most blog sites or social media pages who reserve that right when people sign up for them. For those who avidly crave Trump’s every mutterings, there are ample media sources like FOX, Newsmax and the more current right-wing conspiratorial OAN, who are more than willing to feed their need.
We can’t always control seeing and hearing evil. But speaking it arises from one’s own volition to do so. The least that responsible adults can do is to inhibit those who would use public platforms to broadcast it.
The greater threat comes not from a few obscure voices in the blogosphere but from someone who convinced 74 million voters that his loss last November was a conspiracy that involved multiple GOP election personnel, courts and judges across the country. A notion that defies all sense of reality and sanity.
Totalitarian regimes, once they get a foothold into government, become insidious. They mask their violent and discriminatory natures through populace rhetoric that claims some nebulous patriotic ethos to the fatherland that actually narrows rather than broadens legitimate political participation.
Our current, divided political state is ripe for some authoritarian to project themselves as one who’ll restore a bygone era that many feel has been lost as a result of our expanding, diverse culture. It is this not-so-subtle intent that plays “us” against “them” that mandates a continuing ban from social media sources by those who attract the darkest elements within our society, preventing an honest reconciling of what divides us.
No comments:
Post a Comment