Texas Senator Ted Cruz (among others) has been accusing “big tech” of censorship. On Fox Business, Cruz said,
Big Tech has gotten really bad with censorship, manipulation, open political bias. Google is by far the worst. Google is naked and brazen.
Big Tech is a monopoly. I think they’ve brazenly violated the anti-trust laws. It is dangerous. It is the biggest threat to free speech in the country.
Cruz has it all wrong. Private companies cannot engage in censorship; only government can do so.
To censor means to prohibit the expression of information or an idea, with violators subject to fines or jail. Private companies cannot do this. They cannot make the expression of an idea illegal. Private companies can enforce terms and conditions for using their platform, and those conditions may include a prohibition on certain ideas. But this doesn’t prevent the expression of those ideas.
As an example, Cruz has accused big tech of censoring a New York Post story about Joe Biden and his son. While Facebook and Twitter may prevent users from sharing links to the story, individuals can still share it via other means. Neither company can make it illegal to share the story, as this post illustrates.
Cruz implies that the government should use the antitrust laws to force big tech to be neutral regarding the content shared on their platforms. This, not the policies of Facebook and Twitter, is the real danger.
When government begins mandating what ideas must be expressed, it is a short step away from prohibiting the expression of other ideas. And that means censorship. Government, not private companies, is the institution that should be neutral regarding the expression of ideas.
Private companies have a moral right to use their property as they choose. If this means that they prohibit the expression of ideas with which they disagree, that is their prerogative. If individuals don’t like those policies, they remain free to find other means to express their ideas.
Big tech is not a threat to free speech. Government is.
One comment
Comments are closed.