The struggle for freedom of expression online is heating up. In the past fortnight we’ve had two news stories hit the headlines that illustrate governments are meddling with social media. Firstly, Mark Zuckerberg admitted to the US Congressional Committee that the White House had pressurised Facebook and Instagram to censor public discussion during the Covid-19 pandemic. Zuckerberg admitted with some degree of regret that they had played ball with the authorities. This was done under the guise of hindering what the then government deemed to be, “misinformation”. This admission will not surprise many. A 2020 report by the Media Research Center found that conservative voices were four times more likely to face censorship on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube compared to left-leaning perspectives. But perhaps the bigger storey was the admission of his censorship over Hunter Biden’s laptop and business affairs during the 2020 Presidential election. Especially as the US Left have fervently argued, “there is nothing to see here”, when presented with accusations of brushing the news under the carpet.
Secondly, Judge Alexandre de Moraes, a Brazilian judge this week ordered Elon Musk to block the X accounts of specific individuals who were deemed to be anti the Brazilian government. Musk resisted, citing free speech principles. In response, the judge threatened legal action against the company’s legal representative and imposed a daily fine for non-compliance. Faced with this pressure, the Musk agreed to restrict access, except when offered through his satellite-based service, Starlink. The judge then took the additional step of freezing Starlink’s assets, leading to the removal of the platform in Brazil. In response, Starlink posted on X:
(Full transcript: Following last week’s order from @alexandre that froze Starlink’s finances and prevents Starlink from conducting financial transactions in Brazil, we immediately initiated legal proceedings in the Brazilian Supreme Court explaining the gross illegality of this order and asking the Court to unfreeze our assets. Regardless of the illegal treatment of Starlink in freezing of our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil).
In response, the banning of X in Brazil led Chris Pavlovski, Chairman and CEO of Rumble to take the rare step of emailing his users. On September 6th 2024 Pavlovski wrote:
I don’t typically send messages to our users through email, but red lines have been crossed. There have been major developments with free speech platforms, and I feel it’s important to let everyone know what is going on and how you can help Rumble.
Rumble is no longer available to the citizens of Brazil, joining the ranks of France, Russia, and China. From media reports, Brazil no longer has Elon Musk’s X due to attacks on free speech by Alexandre De Moreas, a justice of Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court.
World powers don’t want Rumble, they don’t want X, they don’t want Telegram, and they don’t want Truth Social. They want to control information, but our companies won’t let them.
There are no other large companies fighting for freedom like we are. We put everything on the line for it, and the Telegram CEO was recently arrested for it.
Advertisers boycott our companies to try and cut our economic lifeline, but they underestimate our support among the people.
These incidents reflect the ongoing global battle against free speech, with no country immune to these challenges. Almost unanimously, political groups are the ones who are calling for social media platforms to ban dissenting voices. As always, there is nothing new under the sun that hasn’t been done before (Ancient Hebrew writing). The shocker however is that this is happening in the free West. The infamous case study of controlled information is that of the National Socialists in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. The Nazis took control of all media outlets, ensuring that only state-approved content was published. Through the Reich Press Law of 1933, the regime shut down independent newspapers and forced editors and journalists to align with Nazi ideology, transforming the press into a tool of state propaganda. Alongside this, the regime used fear and repression to eliminate dissent. Journalists, authors, and publishers who criticized the Nazi Party or its policies were harassed, arrested, or sent to concentration camps. The Gestapo (secret police) closely monitored all forms of communication, ensuring that any opposition was swiftly crushed. Agreed, we are not quite here yet but there are too many concerning similarities; the only major difference to spot is that then it was physical print, now it is mainly digital. This difference doesn’t offer much comfort.
For years, the Left in particular have, quite rightly, made the case for not cancelling information using the Nazi example by highlighting the horrors it can lead to. Why is the West again trying to the pull the wool over the eyes of the electorate by telling us this time it is different – that there are now special bona-fide circumstances for this to be done? There weren’t in the past and there aren’t now. It’s almost like there’s an agenda they don’t want us to know about.
For once, not repeating the mistakes of history but actually learning from them would be highly welcome.