Is Speech Still Free?

For John, BLUF:  If the sources of information are censoring, where do I go for information?  Is Twitter committing suicide, or at least restricting itself to a much smaller audience?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Do the Lord Chancellor and the Archbishop Approve?

From The Chicago Boyz, by Mr David Foster, 28 May 2020.

Here is the lede plus three:

YouTube is run by a woman named Susan Wojcicki.  She has indicated that videos peddling fake or unproven coronavirus remedies will be banned, and also suggested that video that “goes against” WHO guidance on the pandemic will be blocked.

So Ms Wojcicki has established WHO as the ultimate worldwide authority on Covid-19, the imprimatur of said authority being required for dissemination of any relevant information or opinions within Wojcicki’s domains.  One might remind her that on January 23 of this year, WHO decided not to declare that Covid-19 was a global health emergency…hence, had Wojcicki’s present rule been in effect then, any videos asserting that C-19 was, in fact, such an emergency would have been taken down!

What is the thinking behind this sort of effort to clamp down on information flow?  One can certainly understand and sympathize with a desire to avoid the dissemination of quack cures.  But how does this morph into a justification for shutting down discussion of causes, risk levels, and public-policy responses to the epidemic?

If I try to take as sympathetic a view as possible to Ms Wojcicki and those like her, I might view their actions as being motivated by a feeling of responsibility for consumer protection.  But Americans are more that just consumers: we are also (and much more importantly) citizens, participants in the public dialog and political process.   (And an interesting argument has been made that in the American system, citizens are officers of the state.)  And citizens, in order to fulfill their public responsibilities, need unfettered access to information and discussion.

I like this look at Twitter.

I wish the President would stop using Twitter.  And pick a new platform, where I would be happy to follow him.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff