Internet Censorship: Democrats, Remember You Could Be Out of Power One Day

“The mainstream media has largely ignored the unsettling censorship tactics of the Biden administration, and Democrats—all the while—clearly cannot imagine a future Republican administration following this administration’s lead and censoring content that does not support the new administration’s political narrative or agenda.”

Political party control in Washington, D.C. has historically shifted at least every eight years. Democratic Party leaders who desire more government involvement in content moderation would be wise to consider the potential of a reverse political scenario after the 2024 election, should Republicans gain control of the United States Senate and, more importantly, the White House.

Revelations about the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), State Department, and even the White House directly working to censor and influence content from certain users and news sites on social media have been met by a shockingly muted response from the mainstream media. This quiet acceptance by the media is startling since these efforts by the Biden administration directly challenge the values of freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which Americans almost universally view as fundamental principles of our country. This is the same media that squealed for years when former President Donald Trump complained about coverage he did not like and labeled much of the press as “fake news.”

We learned from the Elon Musk-endorsed Twitter Files that the FBI had assigned 80 agents to a task force to monitor social media and send their content moderation suggestions via a secretive Teleport portal directly to senior executives at Twitter, Meta (Facebook), and Google (including YouTube). Democrats would be wise, thus, to imagine a reverse political scenario in 2025, when a conservative such as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Oh.) could be appointed as Director of the FBI by a newly elected Republican president. Like today’s Director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, a future Director Jordan could assign agents to meet regularly with technology company executives to ensure they are properly moderating misinformation posts deemed “harmful.”