Ron Paul Posts Criticism Of Censorship On Social Media Shortly Before Facebook Blocks Him

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

We have been discussing the chilling crackdown on free speech
that has been building for years in the United States. This effort
has accelerated in the aftermath of the Capitol riot
including�the
shutdown sites like Parler.  Now former Texas
congressman Ron Paul, 85, has been blocked
from using his Facebook page for unspecified violations of
“community standards.†Paul’s last posting was
linked to an
article on the “shocking†increase of censorship on social
media. Facebook then proceeded to block him under the same
undefined “community standards†policy.

Paul, a libertarian leader and former presidential candidate,
has been an outspoken critics of foreign wars and an advocate for
civil liberties for decades.  He wrote:

The only thing we posted to
Facebook today was my weekly “Texas Straight Talk” column, which I
have published every week since 1976.

— Ron Paul (@RonPaul)
January 11, 2021

“With no explanation other than ‘repeatedly going
against our community standards,’ @Facebook has blocked me from
managing my page. Never have we received notice of violating
community standards in the past and nowhere is the offending post
identified.†

His son is Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) tweeted,

 â€œFacebook now considers advocating for liberty to be
sedition. Where will it end?â€

Even before the riot, Democrats were calling for blacklists and
retaliation against anyone deemed to be “complicit†with the
Trump Administration. We have been discussing the rising threats
against Trump supporters, lawyers, and officials in recent weeks
from Democratic
members are calling for blacklists to the Lincoln Project
leading a a
national effort to harass and abuse any lawyers representing the
Republican party or President Trump. Others are calling
for banning
those “complicit†from college campuses while still others
are demanding
a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission†to “hold Trump
and his enablers accountable for the crimes they have
committed.†Daily
Beast editor-at-large Rick Wilson has added his own call for
“humiliation,†“incarceration†and even ritualistic
suicides for Trump supporters in an unhinged, vulgar column.

After the riots, the big tech companies moved to ban and block
sites and individuals, including Parler which is the primary
alternative to Twitter.  Also, a top Forbes editor
Randall Lane warned any company that they will be investigated if
they hire any former Trump officials.

The riots are being used as a license to rollback on
free speech and retaliate against conservatives.  In the
meantime, the silence of academics and many in the media is
deafening. Many of those who have spoken for years about the dark
period of McCarthyism and blacklisting are either supporting this
censorship or remaining silent in the face of it. Now that
conservatives are the targets, speech controls and blacklists
appear understandable or even commendable.

The move against Paul, a long champion of free speech, shows how
raw and comprehensive this crackdown has become. It shows
how the threat to free speech has changed. It is like having a
state media without state control. These companies are moving in
unison but not necessarily with direct collusion. The riot
was immediately taken as a green light to move against a huge
variety of sites and individuals.  As we have seen in Europe, such
censorship becomes an insatiable appetite for greater and greater
speech control.  Even Germany’s
Angela Merkel (who has a
long history of anti-free speech actions) has criticized
Twitter’s actions as inimical to free speech.  Yet, most law
professors and media figures in the United States remain
silent.