The first amendment has been at risk recently. People across the political spectrum have been silenced through the banning of their social media accounts and from fear of being “canceled.” This cancellation has grown into a mindset that you will be silenced on social media platforms, or worst lose your job, if you don’t believe in the accepted politics or culture.
Platforms like Parler, Twitter, and Youtube are just three of the most extreme examples of how people have been silenced. Parler is an online website and app that lets people speak freely without worrying about their private information being sold or being banned for having unpopular views. Following the capital riots, several social media companies moved to ban conservatives. Twitter banned Donald Trump from their platform for supposedly inciting the riot at Capitol Hill. CEO of MyPillow, Mike Lendell, got his Twitter account permanently suspended because he continued to claim Trump got the election stolen from him. This ban has sparked outrage for those that care about free speech. Amazon stopped hosting Parlor on their servers, arguing that people on the site had been inciting violence, and the platform was shut down until recently. Parlor argued that it was doing its best to moderate the site, Parlor does not allow threats of violence to be posted, but was unable to handle the millions of news users that flocked to the site following several high-profile suspensions on Twitter. YouTube has been “shadowbanning” content creators for having right-wing views for years now. Shadowbanning is when a content creator is not recommended to new potential viewers, allowing the creator’s channel to grow. They aren’t entirely silenced, but new people won’t hear them.
The issue of free speech is important to me because everyone should have the ability to say what they want without the fear of losing their right to speak freely or losing their job. My fear is that in the future people who don’t share a specific belief about right or wrong will be silenced entirely and jailed for what they say. My view is that the country is too divided and that this divide is becoming irreparable because of the social divide in politics. My hope for repair is to have respectful conversations with one another on both sides of the political spectrum. Dialogue allows people to learn about each other and to find similarities in their beliefs. Even if they can’t find a middle ground, they should be willing to respect their fellow Americans. Respecting one another allows people to learn and gives us a chance to begin repairing relationships between party lines. People are influenced too much by the news and influencers on social media. This has led to growing beleif among some people who think anyone who doesn’t have the same values as them is unredeemable. The radicalization of views has led to the current Cancel culture and the endless attack on people’s character and way of life.
Free speech has already been threatened, leading to a social media “Witch hunt” and has inadvertently polarized people’s views of one another. The silencing of certain people’s voices is important because the idea that some speech is not allowed is a dangerous precedent that the US has started on. If we can’t think freely, can’t learn, and can’t know, we will end up like George Orwell’s 1984.