By Dr. Vernon Coleman – This article first appeared on http://www.vernoncoleman.com
It has been amusing to see politicians becoming hysterical about Donald Trump being banned by Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
`Good heavens, this is censorship,’ they’ve been crying. `How dare these social media giants silence someone?’
They are, of course, worried that the nasty social media monsters are getting above themselves. And they are particularly worried that they might be next.
Today, they’re banning Trump.
Tomorrow they’re banning Biden, Merkel, Macron, Johnson or even Putin.
What a joke.
There’s been very little free speech on the internet for a long, long time.
And the social media giants have been silencing the truth for far too long.
Earlier last year I tried to join Twitter and Facebook.
Both rejected my application before I’d got further than typing in my name – on the grounds that I would be a threat to their communities.
Now that’s censorship.
Since then YouTube has taken down about half my videos.
And several online publishers have banned my books.
I’ve forgotten who else has banned me – it’s a long list.
My crime?
Telling the truth.
That’s all I’ve ever done or tried to do.
The social media giants are corrupt, and as far as they are concerned free speech is now little more than a vague memory.
They probably have nightmares about the truth.
Facts are banned with quiet regularity.
Wikipedia and Google conspire to defame and distort in favour of the Gatesian corruptibles.
And every part of the mainstream media has been banning me for years.
No interviewer on mainstream media dares interview me or allow me air time to dispute the lies being told by governments and government scientists. The BBC denies the truth with unstoppable zeal.
But I’ll tell you something. In the end all those mainstream media sites and all those social media companies will lose.
Some years ago I resigned from a well-paid column on a British Sunday newspaper because the editor refused to print a column I wrote questioning the validity of the Iraq War. I didn’t believe in the weapons of mass destruction claims and I thought we were being lied to. I didn’t see the point in writing a column if I wasn’t allowed to express my honestly felt views. Resigning from that column on a matter of principle meant that I didn’t get any more newspaper work. Editors don’t much like columnists who have principles – and it cost me dearly in financial terms.
But that newspaper has been slowly dying since then.
The circulation fell by around 90% in the years which followed. Now, you could argue that the circulation fell that much because I left and I wouldn’t stop you if you did but I wouldn’t really believe it. And you could argue that the circulation fell because all newspapers are losing circulation and that’s true. But this particular newspaper has lost a devil of a lot more circulation than it should have done.
And I know why.
It is slowly dying because it lost its integrity. It doesn’t stand for anything. It didn’t respect its readers. And the readers saw or sensed that lack of respect.
In a way, it’s tricky being a publisher. 
If you’re going to retain your integrity and ensure that your readers or viewers know that you respect their intelligence then you have to put up with people wanting to write or say things you don’t agree with.
When the men and women in suits tell you to ban this or censor that you have to have the guts to say `No’ or someone else will come along and put you out of business.
You obviously have to censor people who tell blatant lies or want to publish dangerous or illegal material. But you can’t suppress the truth and expect to retain respect and goodwill. Leaving people alone to tell the truth or share their opinions needs courage and basic integrity. You have to recognise that you cannot have freedom without a free press. Remember those newspaper editors in old cowboy movies? They always had the courage to print the truth.
It was, remember, HL Mencken who wrote that the relationship of a journalist to a politician should be that of a dog to a lamppost. And it was Theodore Roosevelt who, to paraphrase slightly, wrote that thinking there must be no criticism of the establishment is not only unpatriotic and servile but morally treasonable. Henry David Thoreau wrote his book `Civil Disobedience’ he meant it – and the original title was `On the Duty of Civil Disobedience’. Wimpy modern publishers usually leave off the first four words. Thoreau would regard them with contempt.
I was banned in China years ago so I know how that works.
Statist, fascist, establishment organisations have been doing it for a long time. Look at what happened to Dr John Snow, Dr Ignaz Semmelweiss and many, many more.
Perhaps it’s a good thing that politicians now realise how easily free speech can be removed by those promoting fascist, statist, oppressive propaganda.
Meanwhile, if you want to read the transcripts of the videos that YouTube banned they’re available in a book entitled `Covid-19: The Greatest Hoax in history’. The paperbacks and eBook versions have been banned so it’s available now as a PDF.
And the PDFs of both are free on http://www.vernoncoleman.com and on http://www.thelightpaper.co.uk
Take a look and see what they were frightened of.
Copyright Vernon Coleman January 2021
Vernon Coleman’s book How to protect and preserve your freedom, identity and privacy is available as a paperback on Amazon.
