Handing Government The Keys To Social Media Would Make Things Far Worse

Americans are right to be concerned about the power wielded by tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Twitter. The permanent banning of Donald J. Trump from Twitter and Apple and Amazon’s removal of Parler from their respective app store and AWS servers has led to calls for action, fueled by the fear that all non-leftist voices may one day be forever barred from social media.

The current state of banning, stifling, and removal of voices who dissent from leftist or woke orthodoxy is bad for America, bad for open debate, and bad for liberty. Of all the possible responses to this dilemma, however, getting the government involved would turn a deeply worrisome situation into something far worse and likely irreversible.

Yes, it’s grossly hypocritical and transparently inconsistent that vile tweetsfrom Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khameneias well as heinous propaganda from the Communist Party of China are allowed to remain on Twitter, while Trump has been banned. Yet there is an important distinction between being outraged that a private company doing something we may disagree with and recognizing it is within their rights to do such a thing.