It appears now that no matter which side of the political spectrum you’re on, you can find common ground by agreeing to the nationalization of social media platforms.

As of July 9th, 2019 a federal court has ruled that Donald Trump is not allowed to block people on Twitter. You can begin to imagine that your society is going downhill when government courts are ruling on cases about who can block who on social media, but that’s unrelated at this moment. In its decision, the court effectively is stating that a social media account can be a facet of the government. As ridiculous as it sounds, this is in effect what is being said by the ruling. This is a dangerous precedent, that an entity not owned by the US government must remain accessible to everyone. Whether the account belongs to Twitter or President Trump remains irrelevant, as either way both are private entities, and as such, they are entitled to do what they want with their property.

In an astounding move, the political left has remained completely silent on this issue, a true feat for them indeed. So, this means we must turn to the other side, the right, who in a now unsurprising fashion, have decided to take a page out of the playbook of the left. President Trump, and others to the right in the social media sphere, have decided that more government intervention and nationalization are what is needed to end this discrimination against those on the right.

I listened to what Charlie Kirk from TPUSA had to say about the social media summit the President hosted yesterday, I was less than excited and completely expecting what his response was. Him and others like him were promoting the idea that the government change the classification of social media platforms into publishers, this would mean that they would be subject to much tighter laws and would even be liable to lawsuits for what is put out on their platforms. Furthermore, it was proposed social media platforms should be made responsible with upholding the first amendment on their platforms.

Now, while this idea seems novel and smart, it is in fact a grave mistake. What the proponents of this idea do not understand, is that they are charging a non governmental agency with carrying out the duties of the United States government. It sounds like outsourcing or privatization, right? It’s not, it is in fact the expansion of the government and the regulatory state. The government will still be tasked with doing its normal duties of upholding the first amendment, but now they are dictating as to what a private entity can and cannot do with its own property. This is a place marker on a road to injustice.

Social media platforms are really not any different than someone who owns a field, and then they allow people to come onto their property and place signs down. They normally allow almost any sign to be placed down, but when the local KKK chapter decides they want to place an anti miscegenation sign down, the owner removes it, which leads the chapter to accuse them of being unfair. While it may not be fair to the local KKK chapter, it really doesn’t matter because they have zero right to place a sign down in the first place, nobody does. It is in fact a privilege for an individual, business, or organization to give you a platform. While the whole structure of social media is different, as they need users in order for their businesses to survive, it makes no difference, as the businesses still own the platforms, and as such it is their right to do whatever they want with them. It’s ironic as the left here would likely agree with this approach to social media, they would applaud my views on this subject, but in doing so they expose their own hypocrisy, they support business and property rights here because it’s convenient for them, as they are the ones benefitting from the discrimination. But when it comes down to some other form of discrimination, property and business rights are nowhere to be seen in their line of thought, and so I ask now that they either remain consistent, or silent.

In giving that example, I am in no way trivializing the concern of actual victims of social media discrimination, it is occurring and it isn’t fair. There are many non radicals, and those with sane and rational conservative viewpoints that have been targeted by social media platforms, and if it were up to me, I would say everyone should be allowed to speak their minds on social media, but I do not own these platforms. Conservatives and those on the right should not take a knee jerk reaction to this issue like we currently have, instead we should find a way to stay true to our other principles while we fight for free speech.

A most concerning approach has been proposed by Fox News own Tucker Carlson. While normally I wouldn’t go out of my way to name names or bash people, I have decided that he has been poisoning the well of conservative thought with this approach for far too long. It has even reached the ears and come out of the mouths of right leaning US senators and congressmen. Carlson has proposed that the government use archaic anti trust laws in order to break up these social media and tech companies. While anti trust law itself is archaic and utterly stupid to begin with, the tech companies don’t even fit their own description of monopolies. The point of anti trust laws were so that consumers could have choice and markets could be filled with more competitors, but things have changed greatly since the 1800s, Ulysses S Grant is no longer President, and railroads are no longer the main form of transportation. Consumers in the marketplace are not forced to take a 50 mile journey to find a competing rail line, instead it’s as simple as clicking a website to find a competitor to one of the popular social media websites. Furthermore, there’s no shortage of competitors to the popular social media websites, including the one you’re reading this from right now.

This doesn’t include the fact that we are living in a globalized world, and when one considers marketplaces, it would be ignorant to look at just your own national markets, no matter how large your nation is. That would be like Moldova breaking up Odnoklassniki because they have a dominating hold over Moldovan social media, ironic because you’ve never even heard of it. The “main” social media sites have to compete with global and domestic competitors constantly. Social media sites you’ve never heard of have massive shares in the social media marketplace of other countries. Furthermore, because it is so easy for anyone to join and find another competing platform, market share means a lot less. We are also not even taking into account that even the main social media platforms have to compete with each other.

This finally leads to the black or white question my right leaning peers will ask, well what would YOU do about it? The answer is simple, promote the competition, promote and create your own free speech platforms. President Trump, instead of regulating and nationalizing social media in the same manner the courts are trying to do to you, find an alternative instead, or with your impressive financial holdings, create your own. The point of the whole article is that whether you’re trying to view a Donald Trump Twitter post, or make a post of your own, don’t demand something that you have no right to.