In August of 2018, I argued in defense of social media companies' right to regulate content presented on their sites. I made an argument that because Big Tech giants are private businesses, they have the right to refuse service to any customer they consider reprehensible, as any other business does.  The situation has changed dramatically since then, because in the last two years, social media companies went from limiting access to or deleting individual posts and users to almost a full ban on conservative viewpoints.

There is a large group of people who are no longer allowed to express an opinion on social media platforms.  That's not "regulating content" any more than my supermarket not allowing Christians to shop.  The right to refuse service does not apply to groups of people you don't like.  The right to refuse service applies to single cases when a business-owner refuses to serve a particular customer because his behavior hurts the business.  A hairdresser does not have to serve a person who comes in without his shirt on.  A hairdresser cannot refuse service to all people who do not come in wearing a $50 blouse.

The latest victim to fall to the social media totalitarianism is a conservative news and comedy host, Steve Crowder, who was forbidden to post YouTube for a week.  That suspension comes on the heels on Steve's recent Twitter ban. 

Apparently, the cause for the YouTube suspension was Crowder's episode investigating individual cases of voter fraud in Nevada.  Steve's crew went to dozens of addresses in Nevada, showing that addresses were nonexistent or that people who voted from those addresses did not live there.  For each voter fraud case, Steve's episode provided a detailed explanation on how the vote that came from a particular address was invalid.  There were no "harmful or dangerous acts," "hateful and derogatory content," or "violence" in the video.  Everything contained in the video was verified, so there was no false information, either.  Steve went farther to explain that YouTube had cleared the episode, because no assertion of "widespread voter fraud affecting the outcome of the election" was made in the video.

However, now YouTube has gagged Steve's channel because of that exact video that YouTube said did not violate its guidelines two weeks ago.  The Verge reported that YouTube didn't specify exactly which guidelines Steve Crowder had violated but pointed the publication to "controversial issues" and "sensitive events and harmful and dangerous acts."

Let's take a look at what YouTube considers "controversial issues."

According to these guidelines, anything that may be considered "controversial" or "unsettling to YouTube users" can be removed.  Obviously, seeing the proof that people voted illegally in 2020 elections — something that mainstream media told us never happened — can be "unsettling" to many users.  It is pretty unsettling to me; I won't lie to you.  But what is even more unsettling to me are Joe Biden's press conferences, because a president of the United States blatantly lying to the American people is outrageous.  So because I find Biden's lies unsettling, will Joe Biden's press conferences be removed from YouTube?

In 1947, Voice of America began broadcasting in the Soviet Union.  Many people in the Soviet Union, including my own family, relied on Voice of America as our only source of true information.  Soviet people were forbidden to listen to Western radio stations.  Special jamming stations were built around the country to block the frequencies on which the "enemy voices" were broadcasting.  By the early 1960s, the number of Soviet jamming stations had reached 1,400.  Voice of America broadcasts were severely tampered with and hard to hear.

Social media giants are the jamming stations that silence conservative viewpoints — just as the Soviet government did in the '60s and '70s to voices coming from the West.  Because Silicon Valley puppets are essentially doing the bidding of the U.S. government, there is no difference between the government-imposed propaganda in the Soviet Union and the propaganda being enforced on the American people by tech giants.  There is an active campaign to completely ban conservative voices from being heard on any media outlet.  Conservative hosts like Steve Crowder, Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, and Tucker Carlson are becoming the true Voice of America — in America.

Tanya Berlaga is a contributor to Right Wire Report.

Image: StevenCrowder via YouTube.