In 2021, the public square is almost entirely virtual, so the most important first amendment battles play out in the digital sphere.
A recent Pew poll laid bare partisan divides emerging over internet censorship.
(You can read the entire Twitter thread here.)
Election fraud, which was the subject of the first installment of this newsletter, is one of the most censored topics in the country (and world) today. A Rasmussen poll that made the social media rounds last week generated some optimism in MAGA quarters that their side is gaining the upper hand in the information war.
At the intersection of questions around election fraud and big tech censorship is none other than Mark Zuckerberg. The Federalist published an article this past week on how the Facebook tycoon spent around half a billion dollars in the 2020 presidential election to fund “a targeted, private takeover of government election operations by nominally non-partisan — but demonstrably ideological — non-profit organizations.”
For example:
CTCL demanded the promotion of universal mail-in voting through suspending election laws, extending deadlines that favored mail-in over in-person voting, greatly expanding opportunities for “ballot curing,” expensive bulk mailings, and other lavish “community outreach” programs that were directed by private activists.
CTCL drove the proliferation of unmonitored private dropboxes (which created major chain of custody issues) and opportunities for novel forms of “mail-in ballot electioneering,” allowed for the submission of numerous questionable post-election-day ballots, and created opportunities for illegal ballot harvesting.
CTCL greatly increased funding for temporary staffing and poll workers, which supported the infiltration of election offices by paid Democratic Party activists, coordinated through a complex web of left-leaning non-profit organizations, social media platforms, and social media election influencers.
You almost have to wonder if the the title of the piece—“The 2020 Election Wasn’t Stolen, It Was Bought by Mark Zuckerberg”—was designed to evade the censors.