The social-media ideological purge continues. Facebook has now banned Gavin McInnes, the host of CRTV’s Get off my Lawn and the founder of the Proud Boys organization, which is known for confronting vicious Antifa agitators during their usually violent, anarchist protests. The social network has also begun banning individuals with ties to McInnes or Proud Boys.

Instagram joined Facebook, also banning McInnes and Proud Boys content. Twitter had already banned McInnes earlier this year.

The purge is ongoing, as the main pages of McInnes and Proud Boys have been removed but several associated pages remain functional for the time being.

A Facebook spokesperson told Business Insider, “Our team continues to study trends in organized hate and hate speech and works with partners to better understand hate organizations as they evolve. We ban these organizations and individuals from our platforms and also remove all praise and support when we become aware of it. We will continue to review content, Pages and people that violate our policies, take action against hate speech and hate organizations to help keep our community safe.”

One of Facebook’s “partners” is the malicious left-wing smear group the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) — a hate group which, ironically, still has a Facebook page.

The banning is said to be in response to an incident in October in which Antifa goons showed up to disrupt a McInnes appearance at the Metropolitan Republican Club in New York City. The left-wing anarchist group first vandalized the Republican Club earlier that day, and left a note with the warning that the vandalism was “merely a beginning.”

On the night of Mcinnes’ appearance, a brawl instigated by Antifa ensued. Of course, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo blamed President Trump for the incident.

“Once you unleash hate and division and you demonize differences, you lose control of it. You can’t target it,” Cuomo said. “It’s lighting a match in a field of dry grass. The wind takes it and it just takes off.”

Governor Cuomo then did what today’s Democrats do: He used state resources to settle a political score by siccing a State Police hate-crime unit on McInnes and the Proud Boys. Three Antifa members were arrested in connection with the riot. Police are still seeking some members of both groups.

McInnes and the Proud Boys describe themselves as “Western Chauvinists,” which is particularly provocative to leftists who believe that America is the source of most problems in the world. According to their website, “The basic tenet of the group is that we are ‘Western Chauvinists who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.’”

The group further boasts that it “includes all races, religions and sexual preferences,” therefore it cannot be classified as “alt-right.”

Facebook and the other social-media giants have taken a far more aggressive approach with conservatives during 2018. In August, Facebook, Apple, Twitter, Spotify, and most of the rest banned Alex Jones and InfoWars from their platforms in the space of two weeks.

And social media’s standards for offensiveness appear to be moving farther and farther left. First it was Alex Jones, then Gavin McInnes. Who will be the next conservative or Constitution-friendly voice to be banned? Steven Crowder? Ann Coulter? The New American?

Besides outright banning of conservative voices, the social networks and search engines also engage in the practice of “shadow banning” conservative voices by burying search results and demonetizing conservative videos on YouTube.

And it doesn’t end with political speech or the social networks. Christian website LifeSite was blacklisted by its web host recently with no explanation given. Lifesite reports on current events from a Christian point of view. Can’t have that in this day of political correctness run amok.

Free speech is in crisis in America. It is no longer a case of leftists on college campuses looking to ban or disrupt conservative speakers. The de facto monopoly that Silicon Valley has on social media and the Internet at large is dangerous to any political speech to the right of Chairman Mao. Make no mistake, unless you’re willing to kowtow to political correctness or stifle your conservative opinion about issues of the day, you are at risk of similar removal by the social-media thought police.

Image: screenshot from YouTube video of Gavin McInnes