Written by Nicholas Vetrisek
In the latest edition of the complete gaffe-fest that is the Democratic debates, the award for largest embarrassment of the night goes solely to Kamala Harris. After having her presidential aspirations completely obliterated by Tulsi Gabbard in the second debate, she seemed to have thought that attacking Elizabeth Warren for not wanting to violate the First Amendment would somehow save her floundering campaign.
Due to the latest episode of “Orange Man Bad” in the form of Ukraine, Kamala Harris believes that President Trump’s Twitter should be deleted by CEO Jack Dorsey. In her mind, Trump’s tweets aren’t simply the greatest memes to ever grace the internet, they are legitimate threats that constitute a danger to our republic.
For once, Elizabeth Warren took a decent position on an important issue. Granted, she didn’t actually condemn Harris’ position but she didn’t support it either. This policy of using government pressure on private tech companies to censor political opponents is a shady but technically legal process that is very popular among the Democratic establishment.
This is due to the fact that since the censorship is done by private companies, they can essentially do whatever they want with regard to speech. “They’re a private company, they can do what they want” being the usual claim.
The problem with this notion is the fact that the Internet has become the new public square and primary source of information for Americans. Furthermore, if companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Google want to keep the unbelievably large government subsidies and monopoly level market shares that they currently benefit from, they should be able to offer protection of speech to their users.
Donald Trump’s account is safe, but what about other right-wing figures? What about people like Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos? They say many harsh and unsavory things, much like Trump, but shouldn’t their speech be protected too? The First Amendment says so and anyone who truly believes in the principles of free speech would as well.
Kamala Harris’ cry to delete the President’s personal mouthpiece to the American people seems absolutely absurd now, but it is representative of a much larger problem in American politics: the normalization of de-platforming political opponents. It may have only seriously affected the fringe right thus far, but if conservatives don’t stand up for the rights of others, who will be there to stand up for us?
