Facebook censorship blocking conservative thought from the national dialogue

Facebook has no pretenses about banning conservative thought. Its censorship of conservative voices is not disguised. It's in your face. The company's arrogance shows that it believes that no one can do anything about it. Or will. I have just ended a seven-day stay in FB jail for an unspecified "offense." That means I was totally blocked from posting or commenting, even giving "likes," on Facebook for a full week. As a regular conservative Facebook-user, but still scratching my head on what exactly offended the people running Facebook, I was happy to be back.

As it turned out, my joy was premature. To mark my return to FB, I attempted to post an article outlining the Obama-Brennan attempt to discredit and overthrow the Trump presidency. It was the lead article on the conservative Drudge challenger, Whatfinger.com. I don't know that everything in the article was correct. But the writer made a solid case. There was no profanity, no violence, no personal attacks in the piece, nothing that could be regarded by any reasonable person as hate speech. In fact, a lot of the story was repetition and summary of what has already been widely reported. Bottom line: It was a well documented reveal on the Deep State and the illegal actions of the Obama-Brennan administration against Trump. When I tried to post the story, a Facebook tag popped up that said, "Error. Your message couldn't be sent because it includes content that other people on Facebook have reported as abusive." What? What "other people"? Which Democrat, Squad-supporting progressive, Brennan ally, Deep State operative snowflake was it? What was "abusive" about what I was trying to post? In fact, what does "abusive" in this context mean other than that it is a conservative point of view on current events? Nevertheless, that's how FB explained that it were blocking my post. If there is any consolation, I know not to take it personally. I am indeed in good company. Facebook has pulled the plug on plenty of others. In fact, former Facebook employees have openly admitted to what is going on. This Facebook censorship process is an updated and much slicker version of the classic "Denounce Your Neighbors" communist control device widely used in Cuba, North Korea, and China. It was a key feature of China's Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Today, the Chinese Communist government itself uses a more modern point system to control the population, just as Facebook and other social media platforms are now doing their part to restrict free speech in the U.S. Facebook claims 2.41 billion active monthly users worldwide. Through the genius of Mark Zuckerberg's algorithms and his nearly 40,000 employees, they are severely crippling open discussion and free speech in America. A true conservative might argue that because Facebook is a private, although publicly listed, company, those who own it and run it have the right to determine who gets to use its products and how they are used. But this argument ignores the fact that Facebook has become so entangled in the daily lives of so many Americans that it has become a de facto public utility. It should be seen for what it now is: a totally unregulated utility in the hands of anonymous, unelected technocrats in Silicon Valley who are imposing their leftist political views on users around the world. Congress has had a look but done nothing. Facebook, along with other social media entities such as Google and Twitter that also are actively censoring and banning conservative viewpoints, has become a clear and present danger to free speech and thus the country as a whole. It's not something we should ever see in the land of the First Amendment. Frank Hawkins is a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, Associated Press foreign correspondent, international businessman, senior newspaper company executive, founder and owner of several marketing companies, and published novelist.