Why the Threat to Free Speech Suddenly Looks Much Bigger | Adam Johnston

https://fee.org/articles/why-the-threat-to-free-speech-suddenly-looks-much-bigger/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020_FEEDaily
What do Donald Trump winning the presidency in 2016, the Capitol Protests on January 6, and Joe Biden missing his July 4th Covid-19 vaccination target all have in common? According to many of today’s left-wing politicians and media pundits, Facebook, and social media in general, are partially to blame for all three. Google “Democrats blame Facebook,” and you’ll see what I mean.

On the other end of the spectrum, Republicans blame social media for censoring their ideas due to a perceived anti-conservative bias. Unfortunately, banning former President Trump from all social media didn’t help alleviate those concerns. Many Americans no doubt long for simpler days where people logged onto Facebook to find old friends and play FarmVille and Mafia Wars, but I digress.

Both left and right agree on one thing, however. Social media is a significant battleground in shaping America’s political landscape. Seventy-two percent of US citizens of voting age actively use some form of social media, while 69 percent of Americans in the same group use Facebook alone, according to data from Socialbakers. Overall, 82 percent of the population in the United States had a social networking profile, which translates into 223 million US social media users as of 2020.

There is no question that social media companies and their platforms wield incredible power and influence, especially in journalism and the media. Back at the beginning of the pandemic, The New York Post ran an op-ed suggesting that the coronavirus might have leaked from a lab. Facebook stepped in and claimed that this opinion was “false information.”
The New York Post also published a story about Hunter Biden’s emails before the last election. In response, Twitter and Facebook both limited the story’s reach and ultimately locked the NY Post Twitter account for about two weeks before reversing its decision. The New York Post is not some no-name conspiratorial blog. The paper was started in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton and has more than 2.2 million Twitter followers and more than 4.4 million Facebook followers.