Jan 9th, 2021: Is There a Future for Free Speech?
A few years ago, when a baker refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple due to his religious conviction, some people would cry 'discrimination'. In 2018 the US Supreme Court ruled in his favor.
So not making a cake can be seen as an act of discrimination when tons of other bakers would be happy to provide the service. There was no hardship here. Obviously, the plaintiffs, in this case, had some other reasons to do so because if I was in their shoes, I just went to somebody else for what I needed.
No one has cried discrimination and violation of free speech when Google, Facebook, and Twitter have decided to shut some people's accounts down because of their political or sociopolitical views. What next? Can our moral and religious convictions be on the chopping board next? By the way, who has granted these Internet or Social Media services the moral authority to decide what is true or not? Are they self-appointed authors of the absolute truth? Personally, I am offended when they don't think that I have the intelligence, the moral discernment, and the commitment to the truth that they have to protect me from lies.
Fear is always the foundation of the biggest lie. Discerning the truth is a messy business and yet a necessary one. I don't think I need Google, Facebook, or Twitter to spoon feed me their perceptions of truth. They might just create another lie by doing so. Many years ago during the war, Vietnamese used to access their radios to get the news from the BBC because they didn't believe in what they hear from their national news networks. Maybe it is time for us to reduce the power of these Internet giants and Social Media outlets so that they cannot control our lives. We need to have some clear legal mandates over their censorship. It is also the right time to think and to invest in various alternative accesses to info, so we don't have to depend on the Google God, the Glorious Facebook, and the Cosmic Twitter for our search for the truth. We are dealing with Internet Trinity. One is the father of all 'information', one is the source of many faceless relationships, and one is the art of uttering thoughts in 280 characters.
2 Thessalonians 2: 9-12
"The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness."
