In an interview a few days ago, Bernie Sanders was asked if the liberals have become “too willing to use their cultural and corporate and political power to censor or suppress ideas and products that offend them.” After sprinkling in a little Trump Derangement Syndrome, the Senator from Vermont said the following:
[Trump] is a bad-news guy. But if you’re asking me, do I feel particularly comfortable that the then-president of the United States could not express his views on Twitter? I don’t feel comfortable about that.
[…] Because yesterday it was Donald Trump who was banned, and tomorrow, it could be somebody else who has a very different point of view.
His response is sort of the opposite of what he said a few days after Trump was banned from everything, but hey, principles. While this exchange got a relatively solid amount of news coverage, everything seemed to underreport or leave out one ironic fact: it already has been, as Bernie says, “somebody else who has a very different point of view!” Forget the fact that Sanders’ supporters seem to get suppressed whenever the Democratic party is in the process of shafting him (right around every presidential primary season, hmm). Let’s just examine the time period after Trump was banned from nearly every major social media platform to see if this scenario played out. Was there left wing individuals who got suppressed or censored online after Trump was banned?
Absolutely, and the timing is nothing short of comical. Literally the day after the inauguration of President Biden, Twitter removed several far-left/Antifa accounts (@TheBaseBK, @JewishWorker, @RevAbolition, @RevAbolitionNYC to name a few), probably because they were no longer a useful political tool now that Biden was officially in power.
Almost a week later, Facebook banned several of the leaders from the World Socialist Web Site, Socialist Equality Party, and International Youth & Students for Social Equality, although these bans turned out to just be an “error” and were reversed a few days later.
Last week, on my show, an editor from the WSWS cheered on Censoring his political opponents from social media. I pointed out censorship would soon be used against him. Facebook banned WSWS over the weekend.
That’s why U don’t use fascism to fight fascism
– Jimmy Dore (@jimmy_dore) 27 Jan 2021
About a week after that, YouTube demonetized a slew of left-wing outlets and individuals including Graham Elwood, The Progressive Soapbox, The Convo Couch, Niko House, and so many more.
YouTube Financially Deplatforms Swath Of Indie Media Accounts
YouTube has demonetized progressive commentators @grahamelwood, @theProgSoapbox, @theconvocouch and @B43Franco, as well as freelancer @FordFischer who films US political demonstrations.
– Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) 3 Feb 2021
In the beginning of this month, progressive outlet Hard Lens Media was suspended from YouTube for one week due to a two month old video violating policies against “spam, deceptive practices, and scams.” The appeal was immediately rejected.
Keep in mind that this is just the time period from after Trump being mass banned to now. Plus, I just wanted to illustrate the irony of censorship being turned on leftists in particular. This doesn’t even account for the suppressions of non-partisan individuals, libertarians (aka. “domestic terrorists”), people who don’t have large followings, and creepy suppressions like Twitter removing accounts that “undermine faith in NATO.” I don’t want this article from becoming unbearably repetitive and borderline unreadable, so suffice to say, this is the tip of the ice berg.
So what’s really going on here? Does a sitting U.S. Senator seriously not know that some of his most ardent supporters (or former supporters) were hit with suppression tactics immediately following Trump’s ban? Or, more broadly, that swaths of his supporters are suppressed everytime he’s winning against the Democratic establishment?
Of course he knows. He’s a politician and a grifter.
