ProPublica’s Tax Heist and Social Media Double Standards
The way the illegally obtained info was handled by Big Tech was once again hypocritical.
Grassroots Patriots have many reasons to doubt that the 2020 election was fair. One of the biggest reasons are the actions of Silicon Valley titans, whose campaign of censorship was a massive in-kind contribution to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. The most notable was the way social media throttled the New York Post’s bombshells surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Well, the recent leak of tax data from some of America’s richest has revealed the double standard again.
While this leak, which is politically helpful to the Left, is one more reason to question just how politicized the Internal Revenue Service has become, it should be noted that such leaks are illegal. Twitter, though, has let ProPublica keep posting the data, even though its story was based on an illegal leak of confidential and protected tax records — the very kind of thing Twitter ostensibly bans.
We’ve discussed how double standards erode confidence in the best of circumstances, and how they are metastasizing into a two-tiered system of rules. This ProPublica stunt also reveals a blatant double standard — and it is one that can and should be used to hold Silicon Valley accountable.
Let’s face it: Facebook, Twitter, and Google are, if not outright monopolies, at least ever-present. Google, Apple, and Amazon have reached a point where they were able to force Parler to choose between destruction or bending the knee. Tech companies like Facebook already have much to answer for when it comes to their part in not just the COVID cover-up but in trying to squelch debate over the lockdowns while “science” played favorites.
Anthony Fauci might have a huge paycheck, but he is still part of the federal government, and if Facebook and other social media companies blocked certain comments on the coronavirus at his behest, then there are very grave First Amendment implications involved. If Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were coaxed, cajoled, bribed, or threatened by government officials into silencing opposing viewpoints, then there is an ample body of First Amendment case law that can be cited, and Section 230 isn’t relevant for that.
Grassroots Patriots also know that this is not a one-time occurrence. Whether it’s been civility, norms and standards, or even how members of Congress conduct themselves (Maxine Waters can threaten a riot while Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib can be Hamas cheerleaders, but somehow we’re supposed to believe Marjorie Taylor Greene is the big threat to democracy), double standards are becoming the norm.
The thing is, as we have noted before, these double standards and censorship are not winning over any converts. They are not convincing a single Trump voter that Trump was wrong. Because truth will eventually come out one way or another, and sooner or later, double standards eventually crumble. The only question will be whether it will be the easy way or the hard way.