Thread by @WBLittlejohn

A thread on Big Tech censorship: 1. Censorship we have with us always. We can and often should complain about it, but we shouldn’t act like it’s some shocking new thing. Every society in every age has practiced various forms of censorship. Without it, society cannot hold together

2. In the past, censorship has been exercised by: church authorities, civil authorities, media magnates, powerful business interests, traditional norms, mob justice, or combinations thereof. Of these, only civil authority can censor according to publicly-accountable rule of law.

3. There is nothing wrong in principle with tech companies trying to censor truly outrageous, dangerous, or thoroughly deceitful expression; indeed, there would be something wrong with them, something inhuman about them, if they didn’t.

4. The problem is that Big Tech is too large to pretend to be a mere private censor. It has the power, the monopolistic control, of a public censor, and hence must abide by the norms of effective public censorship.

5. Effective public censorship (which is still deeply fraught and imperfect, but in some measure unavoidable) depends on two things: accountability to a transparent rule of law, to clearly-defined and clearly-applied norms; and accountability to the people and their values.

6. Big Tech censorship has neither of these: it is anything but transparent, operated behind closed doors and wielded in seemingly arbitrary fashion; and it represents the views and interests of a tiny cultural elite, which despises the values of much of the public.

7. In the face of such unaccountable and hostile power, conservatives must be smart. You know what’s not smart? Giving those who hate us easy excuses to crack down; giving them real craziness and lies that they can treat as representative of who we are.

8. In the face of such threats, conservatives must focus on the what lies within our control. Twitter’s censorship algorithms are not in our control (though we should fight in Congress to make them so). Our own speech and actions are.

9. In short, while I share your indignation, I don’t see what’s to be gained wailing about it. We need to man up, confess where we’ve screwed up, make it harder rather than easier for Big Tech to pigeonhole us, and demand that public utilities like Twitter be regulated as such.