It would be interesting to ask anyone who still thinks YouTube has the right to take down a speech by an ex-president of the United States, if they even listened to it. Because if questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election is now openly censored by every major communications platform in America, and it is, then why was the four year assault on the legitimacy of the 2016 election not also censored?

America’s mainstream media, most definitely including the online communications monopolies known as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, spent four years actively promoting “misinformation” in the form of questioning the legitimacy of the Trump presidency, but now they are actively suppressing “misinformation” that questions the legitimacy of the Biden presidency. And they’re doing this, despite ample evidence that Biden’s election was far less “legitimate” than Trump’s.

Read the transcript of Trump’s CPAC speech. He used the word “election” 42 times in that speech, nearly every time in the context of questioning its integrity. And he’s probably going to keep on doing that in every speech he delivers from now on, as he should. America’s election “integrity” is a joke, and Democrats in Congress are doing everything they can to institutionalize the sham procedures that will destroy forever any remaining trust by voters in the integrity of their elections.

What are they thinking at YouTube? That it’s ok from now on to censor the speeches of an ex president, based on remarks he makes that are supported – despite the blatant, offensively false misinformation coming from every “trusted” news source in the country – by ample evidence? YouTube even suspended the RSBN channel for posting the speech, singled out because they have posted every speech by Trump. Exactly how will RSBN move forward, if they can’t post another speech by the ex-president?

It would be bad enough if websites suppressed misinformation in some objective manner, as if that’s possible. There are clearly cases where misinformation can be harmful, as the “shouting fire in a crowded theater” example illustrates. But in general, people have a right to be wrong. Facts are often in dispute. Conclusions based on a set of agreed facts can nonetheless vary widely. Allowing freedom of expression will result in good ideas surviving and bad ideas dying in the sunlight of open debate.

But it’s worse. These websites are suppressing information that, far from being misinformation, is more factual than the narratives being protected. Election integrity is one example, but there are plenty of other examples. Banning the books, and the accounts, of authors that question the wisdom of encouraging gender dysphoric children to begin life altering medical treatments? How can you trust arbiters of information vs misinformation if they’re willing to do that?

When establishment institutions censor the speeches of a former U.S. president, at the same time as they censor countless other counter-narratives of obvious integrity, they destroy the fabric of the nation by destroying faith in the integrity of American institutions. Is that their intention?

EDITORS NOTE: This Winston84 Project column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.