A few days ago, the Twitter account of the parody website The
Babylon Bee was locked over a post about Bee's article naming transgender US
Assistant Secretary of Health, Dr. Rachel Levine their 'Man of the Year.'
This was in response to USA
Today magazine naming Levine among its “Women of the year”.
Twitter cited ‘hateful conduct’ on the part of Bee as their
reason.
https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1505663712266493958
Twitter informed Bee that their account will be restored
once the ‘offensive’ tweet is deleted.
https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1505666033620815880
Bee has over 1.3 million followers on Twitter which enables
them a considerable reach and revenue generation. The easier route would have
been to delete the tweet and then complain.
But admirably, Bee’s CEO Seth Dillon has strode the difficult
path of refusing to capitulate.
https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1505674884222967810
https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1505729734784733190
This isn’t Bee’s first clash with big tech.
In 2020, Facebook demonetized Bee’s
account and removed an article lampooning Democrat Senator Mazie
Hirono's comments during the confirmation hearings of SCOTUS nominee Judge Amy
Coney Barrett.
Facebook claimed the article was ‘inciting violence’ and
demanded the ‘problematic’ portions be removed for the post to be restored.
CEO Dillon, even back then, chose to stand for freedom rather
than Facebook-generated revenue.
https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1318584304277086211
This occurred at a time when Facebook allowed content such as
BLM's Hawk Newsome, saying “If this country doesn’t give us what we want then
we will burn down the system and replace it” and Democrat Congresswoman
Maxine Watters inciting ‘protestors’ to harass members of the Trump
administration.
This goal behind the selective application of restrictions was
obviously to ensure total adherence to the groupthink irrespective of how
ridiculous their ideas may be. Restraining hate or incitement to violence was
the least of their concern.
Facebook
eventually apologized, they restored the article and Bee’s ability to
monetize, claiming “satire can be difficult for our systems to identify”
The Bee, who by no means is a powerful media house, should be
commended for consistently standing up for freedom of expression.
Most articles about Bee call them a ‘right wing’ or
‘conservative’ or ‘Christian’ Satire website. Even right-leaning Fox News
refers to Bee as “a conservative satirical site”. This is probably what causes
extra scrutiny from everyone including Tech giants.
How does Babylon Bee see itself?
These are extracts from the ‘About Us’ section on Bee’s site
“The Babylon Bee is the world’s best satire site, totally
inerrant in all its truth claims. We write satire about Christian stuff,
political stuff, and everyday life.
“We focus on just the facts, leaving spin and bias to other
news sites like CNN and Fox News.
“If you would like to complain about something on our site,
take it up with God.”
The specific mention of ‘Christian stuff’ and Fox News, makes
it obvious that their primary goal is laughter and they are not ideological.
A browse through Bee’s website proves that nobody is spared.
Their object of satire range from President
Trump to Joe
Biden and even President
Putin.
This is a drastic departure from most of the mainstream
‘comedy’ featured on TV and on streaming platforms whose aim is to advance a
political agenda and deride nonconformists.
But this isn’t about taste or quality of content, media by its
very definition is a carrier and not source or recipient.
Freedom of expression emanates from freedom of thought. Every
amazing invention or idea or literary work was the product of a brave new idea.
A society that demands consensus ceases to grow.
This is why people living under totalitarian regimes rarely innovate. It
is not for the lack of talent, it is just that the people do not want to risk
their lives by expressing a different idea.
By censoring and suppressing the ‘wrong’ ideas, Big Tech is
effectively impeding growth. There is no place for such tyranny in one of the
world’s largest democracies.
It has to be remembered that when Big tech launched its
social media platform, it was a place for interaction, sharing of
information, and frivolity.
In time they managed to infiltrate governments, corporations,
educational institutes, NGOs, the news media, and everybody that mattered to
become their official communication channels. They even became a channel of
income for businesses and users.
Once Big Tech established its monopoly, they assumed the roles
of judge, jury, and executioner of content and users permitted on their
site.
During the 2020 Presidential elections, they suppressed
news about Hunter Biden’s corruption that implicated Joe Biden, also
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg donated nearly
$419 million to nonprofit organizations that infiltrated the
administration and infrastructure of the 2020 elections that are supposed
to be apolitical and sacrosanct.
The tyrants hence bought the White House for Joe Biden and now
everybody is suffering.
They also removed President Trump across
platforms for ‘inciting violence’ after the January 6th protests.
Ideally, the US government, leaders, and the media should have compelled them
to summarily reinstate Trump’s accounts. But instead, they were glad that an
independent voice and a tough critic were suppressed.
Big tech became enablers of government Covid-19 vaccine
mandates by censoring any content that challenged the effectiveness of
vaccines.
Currently, Big Tech can even shut down communication lines of
governments or corporations, or individuals by locking all their platforms such
as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Gmail, etc. Hence they can blacklist countries,
corporations, and individuals. The tyrants can demonetize accounts, add
disclaimers to posts and suppress content by applying their rules selectively
and operating above the local or national law.
This goes against the spirit of freedom that is one of the founding
tenets of the internet
They can even deny infrastructure such as server platforms
to rivals. Amazon removed
social media platform Parler, which challenged big tech, from its web hosting
service for ‘violating rules’.
Big Tech hence made a demonstration on how to abuse their monopoly
to shut down opponents and competitors.
The idea was implemented on a must larger scale when Big Tech
led Big Corporations to de-platformed a country i.e. Russia. This is like a
nuclear weapon, and if history has taught us anything, once the advanced
weaponry is developed, it will be used elsewhere.
In free capitalistic nations, the buyers have the power to
choose. What big tech and big corporations are trying to do is subvert freedoms
of choice and democracy by installing a quasi-super Soviet-style regime where
the power lies with the seller.
So how does one take on this tyranny?
All great journeys begin with small steps.
While you retain your Big Tech accounts, you sign-up for
alternative platforms such as Truth Social, Rumble, Parler and make DuckDuckGo
your search engine. Urge your relatives, friends, and colleagues to join in.
Visits sites such as Babylon Bee very frequently. If you run a business, add
these platforms to your channels of communication. Once people get accustomed,
abandoning big tech may not be so difficult. Humans are creatures of habit,
habits are often easy to break as they are to inculcate. It is merely a matter
of time.
Let’s take on the tyrants while we still have the facility to
do so. Wait any longer and it may be too late.
This also appears on American Thinker
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