What Thoughts on Covid are Being Self-Censored?

At every stage, from the initial lockdowns and masks to school closures and vaccines, the strict censorship of facts and ideas that diminish support for the mandates of governments and the World Health Organization—regardless of their cost and efficacy—has been central to the response to Covid-19, especially on social media and within professional organizations. On numerous occasions, the federal government has specifically encouraged big tech companies to ramp up this policy, and the recent flurry of bans of anti-lockdown activists for sharing perfectly innocuous information proves that this censorship shows no sign of slowing down, even as we enter lockdown season 2022. This has some commentators discussing the understudied role of self-censorship in the response to Covid.

Phil Harper | Substack @phillyharper

I'm hopeful that this is beginning to be understood by the wider twittersphere. This is a fairly tame, but very clear example of the scale of censorship that has been taking place. The worst outcome is not the direct censorship, but that people start to self-censor.

Laura Fagan @laurajfagan

Today Twitter permanently suspended my friend @galexybrane for citing @pfizer’s own press release. Guess that means Pfizer is next, right? Is that how this works? https://t.co/7w9T282LSN https://t.co/yZLIipHA3L

Indeed, the arbitrary and unpredictable banning of citizens for sharing innocuous Covid facts that the government disfavors has effectively turned sites like Twitter into a digital Pyongyang, with most large users terrified to venture anywhere near the subject.

Fortunately, here on Substack, we don’t have that problem. So let’s hear from you: Are there thoughts that you’ve been afraid to post on big social media sites throughout the response to Covid? Please share them below.

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Michael P Senger is an attorney and author of Snake Oil: How Xi Jinping Shut Down the World. Want to support my work? Get the book. Already got the book? Leave a quick review.