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By virtue of increasingly arcane algorithms enforcing content moderation, we tend to think of Big Tech as engaging in censorship that stifles freedom of speech. In <\/span>The Markaz Review<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in March 2021, Andy Lee Roth of Project Censored and coauthor of <\/span>The Media and Me: A Guide to Critical Media Literacy for Young People<\/span><\/i> warned that \u201calgorithms, artificial intelligence programs controlled by Big Tech companies\u201d were the \u201cnew gatekeepers\u201d engaging in \u201calgorithmic censorship.\u201d<\/span> While concerns about Big Tech and their proprietary algorithms remain valid, there is a vast difference between what Big Tech is doing and what local, state and federal Orwellian \u201cMinistries of Truth\u201d are doing. It\u2019s the fundamental difference between <\/span>private <\/span><\/i>editorial and content decisions made every day by Google, Facetime, X and the other privately owned social media platforms (including, for that matter, the New York Times and The Markaz Review) and <\/span>governmental <\/span><\/i>laws and regulations that restrict what can be written, read, and taught.<\/span><\/p>\n In warning us about Big Brother in his dystopic novel <\/span>Nineteen Eighty-Four<\/span><\/i>, George Orwell was talking about the threat of government gatekeeping rather than the media. He worried that government would control everything that is written or spoken, destroying \u201cany evidence that might conflict with or undermine the government\u2019s interests.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The word \u201ccensorship\u201d gets thrown around a lot these days. Roth and other whistleblowers accuse Big Tech of \u201ccensoring\u201d content on social media. \u201cCensor\u201d is derived from the system of magistrates established in ancient Rome in the 5<\/span>th<\/span> century BCE who acted as <\/span>census<\/span><\/i> takers, assessors, and inspectors of morals and conduct. Britannica defines censorship as \u201cthe changing or the suppression or prohibition of speech or writing that is deemed subversive of the common good. It occurs in all manifestations of authority to some degree, but in modern times it has been of special importance in its relation to government and the rule of law.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Thus, while many may stretch the term \u201ccensorship\u201d to cover the private editorial judgments of newspapers and social media platforms in deciding what to publish and post, the ugly history of censorship makes it very clear that the term more accurately refers to the power of the state to act as the gatekeeper over what one may say, write and read \u2014 backed by laws and officials, and police and civil or criminal punishments. A free society has a great deal to fear from such official gatekeepers. A social media gatekeeper may deplatform a user or remove his or her objectionable content, but a government gatekeeper can fine them or put them in jail. That\u2019s a big difference.<\/span><\/p>\n Donald Trump aspires to be the Gatekeeper in Chief. Just take a look at Project 2025’s <\/span>Mandate for Leadership<\/span><\/i>, which envisions widespread changes to economic and social policies and the expansion of the powers of the federal government and its agencies. The plan proposes taking partisan control of the Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Commerce, Federal Communications Commission, and Federal Trade Commission; dismantling the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and reducing environmental and climate change regulations to favor fossil fuels; instituting tax cuts; abolishing the Department of Education, whose programs would be transferred or terminated; cutting Medicare and Medicaid; rejecting abortion as health care; eliminating coverage of emergency contraception; enforcing the Comstock Act to prosecute those who send and receive contraceptives and abortion pills; criminalizing pornography; removing legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and affirmative action by having the DOJ prosecute “anti-white racism\u201d; stepping up the arrest, detention, and deportation of undocumented\u00a0 immigrants; deploying the military for domestic law enforcement; and promoting capital punishment and the speedy \u201cfinality\u201d of those sentences.<\/span><\/p>\n This is gatekeeping on steroids. It should strike fear in every American.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The very first words of the First Amendment are \u201cCongress shall make no law. . .\u201d\u00a0 The <\/span>government<\/span><\/i> shall not do this. The First Amendment is a restriction on what the <\/span>government <\/span><\/i>can do. It does not say that social media platforms shall make no content moderation decisions any more than it says that newspapers and book publishers shall make no editorial decisions over what stories to run or books to publish.\u00a0 In fact, the First Amendment protects those editorial judgments. It is the law of the land that <\/span>governments<\/span><\/i> at all levels shall make no laws abridging freedom of speech or freedom of the press.<\/span><\/p>\n This is a solemn declaration, born of the Enlightenment and the jagged history of the United States: The American people do not want the government to serve as its gatekeeper \u2014 its Big Brother \u2014 controlling what we say or write or read.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In <\/span>West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette <\/span><\/i>(1943), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a public school could not compel a student to salute the U.S. flag or recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Justice Robert Jackson, in the majority opinion, famously wrote: \u201cIf there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act faith therein.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He added that the \u201cvery purpose of the Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts.\u201d Jackson welcomed a free people deciding what to believe and what to say for themselves, free from government censorship.<\/span><\/p>\n “The purpose of the Constitution and Bill of Rights\u2026was to take government off the backs of people,” wrote Justice William O. Douglas in <\/span>Schneider v. Smith <\/span><\/i>(1968). \u201cThe First Amendment\u2019s ban against Congress \u2018abridging\u2019 freedom of speech [creates] a preserve where the views of the individual are made inviolate.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n We cannot engage in free thought and free expression if the government dogmatically restricts what we say. Orwell warned us that a government that tells us what we can say will inevitably tell us what we can think.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n We are witnessing an alarming rise in official gatekeepers in America. In April 2023, UCLA researchers released a study that found that in 2021 and 2022, federal, state, and local government officials introduced 563 measures aimed at restricting access to truthful information about race and systemic racism. The study was conducted by CRT Forward, an initiative of the UCLA School of Law’s Critical Race Studies Program, which defines critical race theory as the study of systemic racism in law, policy and society.<\/span><\/p>\n Many of these measures restrict or prohibit teaching the proposition that certain US institutions are “inherently” or “fundamentally” “racist.\u201d Others target teaching subjects that cause students to feel “discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race\u201d or teach “individual responsibility for systemic racism.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Researchers looked at the impact of former President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 13950, which banned certain “divisive concepts” in federal trainings. CRT Forward uses a database that comprehensively tracks anti-critical race theory measures at the federal, state, and local levels, including legislation, school board policies, gubernatorial executive orders, and state attorneys general opinions.<\/span><\/p>\n While Trump\u2019s executive order was rescinded in January 2021 by incoming President Joe Biden, anti-critical race theory measures have been introduced in every state except Delaware. By the time the survey was released, 241 of the measures had been adopted.\u00a0 Fortunately, many are being successfully challenged in court.<\/span><\/p>\n “While this report looks to data from the recent past, its findings are integral to ensuring those committed to racial justice can chart a path forward that will allow everyone \u2014 especially our children \u2014 to have tools for addressing the most pressing racial and social justice issues of our time,” said Taifha Alexander, the CRT Forward project director and a co-author of the report.<\/span><\/p>\n BREAKING: Professor Danny Shaw Becomes Latest Victim of the Assault on Free Speech<\/p>\n Professor Danny Shaw, former heavyweight boxer and educator, was detained and interrogated by the FBI and DHS at Chicago\u2019s O\u2019Hare Airport on August 28, 2024, following his attendance at the Free\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/eFEm0yrdPg<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) August 30, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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\nIn the U.S., the First Amendment prohibits government from being an official gatekeeper<\/h4>\n
\nAs 21st century gatekeepers, too many governments are using their power to ban books and control what is taught in public schools<\/h4>\n
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