Sen. Mike Lee doesn’t like social media companies suspending, deleting or truthing content on their sites (“Lee scolds social media giants for ‘censorship’ of conservatives,” Tribune, Aug. 1). Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes didn’t anticipate the internet and social media when he used the analogy of a prohibition against falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded theater as a reasonable limitation on free speech because that shout could result in the injury or death of the theater’s inhabitants.
The larger theater of the United States — of the world — is now routinely subjected to shouts of “fire,” of deadly misinformation, from our president and his echo chamber — the majority of the Republican party. Lee defends the president’s right to spread disinformation — the coronavirus is a hoax, face masks are a hoax, hydroxychloroquine and injected disinfectant cure it — even though over 150,000 Americans have died.
Lee labels the actions of social media companies as censorship of “conservatives.” The same newspaper reported that Twitter has removed that staunch conservative and Trump supporter David Duke, ex-leader of the Klu Klux Klan, from its platform for “hateful conduct.”
If Lee believes that Duke should be given social media platforms to spread hate then he is saying that the violence perpetrated against African Americans in our country over the centuries as a result of hate speech is an acceptable price to pay for his version of free speech for “conservatives.”
James Allred, Millcreek