Silicon Valley vs Free Speech:

Silicon Valley Has Effectively Banned the Freedom of Speech. It’s Time We Take It Back

Robert Bridge

Somewhere along the road of America’s development, corporations were blessed with not only ‘personhood,’ but with the power to sanction what sort of messages were permissible to enter the public realm. Let’s be clear: This sort of corporate control, which borders on pure fascism, has no place in a democracy.

There is no need to ask. There is no need to be polite. There is no need to debate. It is only necessary to point to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution for this fundamental human right, inscribed into law over 200 years ago, to be returned to the American people.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

So how did it come to be that such a straightforward and unambiguous command has become so unattainable in reality?

The primary source of our current plight is that the Founding Fathers had no idea to what degree corporations would come to dominate every square inch of our public and private lives. Had they been somehow forewarned of the approaching pirates just over the horizon with serious political axes to grind, there is no doubt they would have adjusted the Constitution’s sails to prepare for the invasion. Alas, such farsightedness was far beyond the psychic powers of any individual at the time.

And much like in the political realm, the variety of messages available is deceptively wide and dangerously shallow, while the holy grail of the ‘editorial slant’ is obsessively guarded from any and all apostates. Amid such medieval conditions, the individual who hopes to have his voice heard in the public realm may wish to take the social media route courtesy of Google, YouTube, Facebook or Twitter. Here too our lonely nomad – especially if he is of a more conservative bent – will run headlong into an impenetrable wall known as censorship or being ‘shadow banned’.

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