CENSORSHIP OR FREEDOM OF SPEECH?

For 4 years, Trump has been in a vicious battle with the mainstream media. Column pieces about how sexist or racist he is, his relationship with Russia or hatred towards Iran and China are almost a daily material for News media. But situations have turned into censorship after a while.

Western world was so angry at Trump that a Canadian television channel CBC censored Trump scene in “Home Alone 2”. Even expressing support to Trump was enough for celebrities to face backlash on social media. Situation got out of the hand on a level that, when i have spoken with Trump supporters they claimed they have been giving wrong answers on political polls due to fear of damaging their career. I can’t confirm if this happened to anyone but it seems like a general concern for Trump supporters.

Regardless of Trump’s or his fans political stances, entire discussion was opposing the general western values. Maybe something similar happened during the cold war because of the “Red scare”. Dozens of actors and directors were banished from Hollywood because they were claimed to be “Communists”.

BETWEEN FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND PRIVATE PROPERTY

On last weeks, Trump tweeted about a discussion going on for the system to be used in upcoming 2020 elections. Due to Covid-19, plan suggested that voters should use “mail-in ballots” for safety reasons. Even before looking at Trumps’s comment I believe its easy to realize this is quite a shady idea. Of course as expected, Trump openly critisized the idea, believing it will result in a rigged election.

But the situation actually got out of hand when Twitter interfered. Twitter added a link below his tweet that leads to a CNN article talking about safety of mail-in ballots. Considering Trump’s hostility towards CNN, its easy to claim Twitter had start to pick sides.

Of course this caused a shock in many. The social media platform has come to life in 2006, have never seen an interference like that. We already know that there has been countless revolutions, political movements and millions of allegations that could use a fact-check posted on this platform yet Twitter interfered with none of them. At this point many believe Twitter has lost its neutrality.

Twitter was not the only company censoring Trump. Live streaming platform Twitch has also suspended his account after streaming his rally due to “ inciting violence”.

Trump critisized these actions as an interference towards freedom of speech. He was not just talk, he also brought a new law consisting of punishment towards social media platforms in a case of intereference to their users posts.

But Trump’s this action started a discussion in USA that many other countries are not familiar of.

A big group that includes some Trump supporters, were not happy with states meddling against private companies.

In the end, Trump was under attack by most of major corporations and media outlets and this was increasing his popularity in the masses. But even for his fans, a state intervention on private entities were not something to be tolerated.

Libertarians claimed that Trump was violating NAP (Non-Aggression Principle)

NON AGGRESSION PRINCIPLE (NAP)

NAP is a concept revolving around respecting private property. It is an important ideological standing point for capitalism as it ensures safety of private entities. It only reinforces the use of violence in case of defense of individual or its private property. To understand U.S right wing as a whole, we need to have a grasp on this concept first.

Libertarians differ from rest of Trump voters on this subject. MAGA hat rednecks tend to follow their leaders in most cases, meanwhile Libertarians carry a potential to cease support if their ideals are crossed by the leader. These people believe as private company, Twitter has right to take sides or make changes on their private platform. In their opinion Trump can’t use government authority to overcome this adversity.

This concept is important as the “Second Amendment” , which provides freedom to Americans to carry firearms.

As a counter argument, many claims that private companies turned into political tools that enforcing a certain agenda over the public, which justifies Trumps action against them.

In a case study, its stated that %58 of Americans say no to government interfering with private entitites with excuse of “fact-checking” meanwhile %56 of them say yes to corporations doing the same thing.

Lastly, we can say that both right and the left have discussions in terms of freedom of speech. Left wing has a will to “cancel” any argument or individual they believe to be offensive. Meanwhile on the right, Trump’s authoritarian tendencies are concerning “private property fetishists”. Overall, western values of freedom is under threat by itself.

Wish to see you next week on a new article…

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