Retired Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army Allen West (Screenshot)

As y'all know, I am a Senior Fellow with the Media Research Center, the country's premier conservative media watchdog group that has been around some 30 years. While on the MRC Alaska cruise, one of the panels was on the subject of censorship. Yes, it is happening. As a matter of fact, we have had experiences with algorithm manipulations by Facebook affecting your ability to read what we are expounding upon here on this website. As well, we know about the "shadow banning" of conservatives. Heck, even Fox Business News' Maria Bartiromo has experienced this. As well, we have seen the censoring of videos -- conservative, of course -- such as those from Prager University. And we recently discussed Twitter getting slammed for their banning of Candace Owens, who only swapped out a couple of words from the tweets of one Sarah Jeong -- a far leftist member of the New York Times editorial board, whose tweets were not banned.

My assessment is that none of this is happenstance, but rather part of a grand strategy by the progressive, socialist left to shut down politically opposing speech. Ya know, like someone at Facebook determining that Diamond and Silk were "unsafe to the community." Well, it appears that I was not far off in my beliefs, assessments, and estimations. There is indeed a leftist strategy, enabled by the social media tech giants, to silence conservative views, perspectives, and insights on their respective platforms. These forums, which ironically are touted as being open.

This goes right along with the recent video from Campus Reform that showed many students at Columbia University could not name our First Amendment rights in the Constitution. See, for the progressive, socialist leftists in America, it is not about free speech, it's all about what they define to be "accepted speech."

As reported by WND:

"The recent wave of censorship of conservative voices on the internet by tech giants Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Apple mirrors a plan concocted by a coalition of George Soros-funded, progressive groups to take back power in Washington from President Trump’s administration. “A confidential, 49-page memo for defeating Trump by working with the major social-media platforms to eliminate right wing ‘propaganda’ and ‘fake news’ was presented in January 2017 by Media Matters founder David Brock at a retreat in Florida with about 100 donors, the Washington Free Beacon reported at the time. “On Monday, the Gateway Pundit blog noted the memo’s relationship with recent moves by Silicon Valley tech giants to ‘shadow ban’ conservative political candidates and pundits and remove content. “The Free Beacon obtained a copy of the memo, ‘Democracy Matters: Strategic Plan for Action,’ by attending the retreat. “The memo spells out a four-year agenda that deployed Media Matters along with American Bridge, Shareblue and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to attack Trump and Republicans. “The strategies are impeachment, expanding Media Matters’ mission to combat ‘government misinformation,’ ensuring Democratic control of the Senate in the 2018 midterm elections, filing lawsuits against the Trump administration, monetizing political advocacy, using a ‘digital attacker’ to delegitimize Trump’s presidency and damage Republicans, and partnering with Facebook to combat ‘fake news.’ “Quashing ‘fake news’ with ‘mathematical precision’ “The Free Beacon in its January 2017 story said Brock sought to raise $40 million in 2017 for his organizations. “The document claims Media Matters and far-left groups have ‘access to raw data from Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites’ so they can ‘systemically monitor and analyze this unfiltered data.’ “‘The earlier we can identify a fake news story, the more effectively we can quash it,’ the memo states. ‘With this new technology at our fingertips, researchers monitoring news in real time will be able to identify the origins of a lie with mathematical precision, creating an early warning system for fake news and disinformation.’”

Okay, so I must surmise that the "fact checkers" Mark Zuckerberg referred to in his Congressional testimony is Media Matters for America (MMFA) – a George Soros-funded organization.

Well, so much for objectivity from the CREW in Silicon Valley. Undoubtedly, this level of "collusion" will not be addressed, or investigated, by any special prosecutor.

Here is my rub: these social media organizations need to come clean and either admit that they are censoring conservative speech or go ahead and admit that they are indeed just platforms for leftist progressives – which means they will soon fail. These social media tech giants must be forced to make a decision as to whether or not they are part of a free and open public forum, or just a laboratory for liberal, progressive socialist blather.

What I find very perplexing is how the left has gone full metal jacket to patrol these social media sites. This is after Barack Obama used the same platforms so very adeptly, and masterfully. It's as if the left has realized that we conservatives can also "community organize" on these platforms, so that must be shut down.

It is no different from how the conservatives finally developed their own very powerful grassroots, community organized, movement, the Taxed Enough Already (TEA) Party. When the left, namely Obama, realized that this was not an "astroturf" movement – as famously characterized by one Nancy Pelosi – based upon the shellacking in the 2010 midterm elections, the left went into attack mode. They weaponized the IRS against every day American, grassroots, citizen-activist groups to prevent any chances of defeat in 2012.

Now, we have the left recognizing that they must eliminate any political opposition on social media platforms, and they have enlisted the likes of David Brock, and MMFA, as their weapons of choice. This is actually no big secret among those who know leftist tactics. The left is not going to sit back and allow a second Trump victory in 2020. Therefore, they have enacted a strategy to control the message, and have created the "Russia, Russia, Russia" strawman to mask their intentions.

This is an example of the real collusion that should be investigated. As they say, the best disinfectant is sunlight, and I will gladly shine a light on these roaches whenever I can. This should also be very disconcerting for any true American, as we are watching a fundamental basis of socialism take root in America, censoring free speech, and thought which opposes the leftist ideological agenda. If there is a vital reason not to allow the left to attain political power in America, again, this is it. You can bet that yours truly would be shut down – heck, maybe even found guilty of trumped-up charges, placed into solitary confinement, and sentenced to jail … or perhaps a “re-education camp.” What is the progressive socialist version of Siberia? Well, I am from the South, and I ain't going there.

That's why we Old School Patriots must stand and fight. We must report the instances of censorship we are facing. We must expose the left and their henchmen like David Brock, and Media Matters for America.

Allen West is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army. Mr. West is a Senior Fellow at the Media Research Center to support its mission to expose and neutralize liberal media bias and is author of the forthcoming book from Brown Books Publishing Group coming this fall, “Hold Texas, Hold the Nation: Victory or Death.”