Social media's PC gulag

You already know that social media is owned – is dominated, therefore – by left-wing personalities. Mark Zuckerberg, the face behind Facebook, is notoriously left of center. Google's management is no better, and while Google Plus has not exactly become the social network of record, Google owns YouTube, which boasts a staggering 1 billion users a month. Twitter's management is notoriously inconsistent when it comes to conservatives, deleting and harassing conservative members while largely giving liberal miscreants carte blanche on the microblogging site. Recent salvos in the war by liberals on conservatives in social media have only underscored two things: first, that the war is happening, and second, that liberals and progressives hate freedom of speech and will do whatever is necessary to silence their foes.

In the last weeks, one of the most popular firearms channels on YouTube, Hickok45, was suspended by YouTube, supposedly for "repeated violations" of the site's terms of service. The channel is nothing more or less than a fairly personable man shooting a dizzying variety of weapons in his backyard shooting range; there is nothing controversial about it. It happens to be immensely entertaining – but for YouTube, the fact that it was about guns, and the fact that it was popular with conservatives and gun owners, was reason enough to harass its owner.

When pressed by widespread outrage over the suspension, Google offered a lame excuse regarding restrictions on Google Plus. Because YouTube started forcing users to create or convert to Google Plus accounts linked to their YouTube videos, all of Hickok45's uploads were cross-posting to Google Plus, where they were theoretically in violation of vague terms concerning advertising or publicizing "restricted" products. The channel was put back up, then suspended again. At press time, it was once again running ... but for how long? How long before vague changes in YouTube's terms of service make all mention of firearms forbidden, retroactively banning previously allowed gun videos?

Twitter, meanwhile, took an even bolder stand, "unverifying" Milo Yiannopoulos' Twitter account. Verification is a process that occurs at the whim of Twitter. Users are discouraged from applying for verification; Twitter, users are told, will determine who is and is not worthy. As Yiannopoulous, described as an "Internet supervillain" by left-leaning Salon, delights in criticizing "social justice whiners" and other progressives, he has painted a target on himself. That target has made him the subject of numerous parody and impersonation accounts – the very thing "verification" is supposed to mitigate. By "unverifying" Yiannopoulos for undefined "violations" of its rules, Twitter is essentially telling conservatives they – and their ideas – are unwelcome on the site.

It's not the first time a conservative has been banned for doing nothing more than criticizing, well within the parameters of Twitter's rules of conduct, a left-leaning user or users. Conservative actor Adam Baldwin, who is quite outspoken on Twitter, was suspended for doing nothing more than (again) criticizing "social justice" libs. He found himself locked out of his account until the offending tweet or tweets were deleted.

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The list of examples of bias in the management of social media goes on and on. There are no prominent liberals who have been punished by social media sites for expressing left-wing points of view. Not a single example has been offered publicly. Yet there are numerous examples of conservatives and libertarians being sanctioned, punished, banned, or otherwise harassed for doing nothing more than expressing opinions progressives do not like. Prominent as social media is in shaping opinion – people get a startling amount of their news these days from headlines on Facebook and Twitter, but seldom read beyond those frequently misleading headlines – this means that popular culture is being driven left by a double standard.

Leftists adore double standards almost as much as they adore mob violence; they never miss a chance to exempt themselves from the controls they try to place on the public at large. (Hence, a number of prominent celebrities and politicians have been called out for traveling with armed guards while trying to forcibly disarm American citizens.) You can count on almost any prominent social media site being biased toward the left. Anyone who does not toe the liberal line will be harassed and suspended.

In a free market, of course, this would be perfectly acceptable. There is no guarantee of freedom of speech on someone else's property. Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, YouTube ... these are websites run for profit by commercial entities, whose owners are free to be as biased as they wish. Or rather, this would be true if we lived in a free society and a free market. Sadly, we do not.

The reality of our society, the web of laws that rule every moment of our lives and of our popular culture is that we have repeatedly insisted on a different (and no less double) standard for public accommodation. We live in a world where Christians cannot refuse to bake a cake for a "gay" wedding – but your Muslim cashier can refuse to ring up your bacon. We live in a world where your government can force you to buy health insurance – but Muslim taxicab drivers can refuse to pick you up if you are carrying alcohol. We live in a world where "Occupy" and "Black Lives Matter" can (with the president's overt or tacit approval) intimidate private citizens, rampage across private and public property, and threaten police with murder, but conservative protests against the Bureau of Land Management are immediately labeled "terrorism."

These double standards are the direct result of allowing liberals to have it both ways, creating "rights" where none exist while denying us those rights our Constitution protects. If we do not demand fair treatment in public venues, we concede ground from which the libs will further marginalize us. Every time a conservative or libertarian is treated unfairly on social media, another brick is laid in a wall of separation. That wall separates Americans from the Constitution – and it surrounds a politically correct gulag of the Democrats' making.

Media wishing to interview Phil Elmore, please contact [email protected]m.