My New Year’s resolution: I’m quitting YouTube

by Senator Rand Paul via Washington Examiner  

Every year, people resolve to do things that are better for their health — quitting alcohol, processed food, toxic relationships. I have come to the realization that my relationship with YouTube is dysfunctional.

Sure, I can get millions of views. But why should I allow anonymous “fact-checkers” to censor my fully sourced, fact-based content? They don’t want to challenge or debate me with opposing views, they just want my silence.

Everyone complains about Big Tech. The Left says Big Tech doesn’t censor enough. The right complains that Big Tech censors too much already.

Many in Congress, on the Left and the Right, want to break up or regulate Big Tech, but few of these loud voices have actually stepped up and quit using Big Tech.

So today, I announce that I will begin an exodus from Big Tech. I will no longer post videos on YouTube unless it is to criticize them or announce that viewers can see my content on rumble.com.

Why begin with YouTube? Because they’re the worst censors.

Any time I state that cloth masks do not stop the virus from spreading, as in this Denmark study, Florida school comparison, and Vietnamese study, YouTube deletes the video. I always cite studies and scientific sources such as those listed here, but instead of allowing free and open debate with others who might argue flaws in those studies or cite opposing ones, YouTube simply silences me.

A hallmark of the scientific method is to challenge and disprove a hypothesis. Yet we have abandoned science and rational debate for an almost religious adherence to the edicts of government bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci. To challenge the data is to be a “denier” or “conspiracist” who must be silenced.

When I gave a speech on the Senate floor asking whether Eric Ciaramella, the Vindman brothers, and Adam Schiff’s legal team conspired while working at the White House to impeach the president, YouTube chose to censor and delete the video.

The gall to delete constitutionally protected speech! It is indeed ironic that the censors likely think of themselves as progressive but their actions are more suggestive of the diktats of the Medieval church. Think about it. In the U.S. in 2021, you are being told there are ideas or opinions that are too “dangerous” for you to see. It is “disinformation” they admonish, so if you want to stay on their platforms you must conform to their approved opinions.

Matt Taibbi captures this illiberal desire to censor: “The traditional liberal approach to the search for truth, which stresses skepticism and free-flowing debate, is giving way to a reactionary movement that Plato himself would have loved, one that believes knowledge is too dangerous for the rabble and must be tightly regulated by a priesthood of ‘experts.’”

The Left immediately responds (as if they’ve suddenly understood the right to private property) that private property owners have the right to restrict speech. Of course, Big Tech has the legal right to censor content. I’ve never argued otherwise. While obnoxious, arrogant, and closed-minded, the CEO of Twitter is correct: The first amendment applies to the government, not to private business.

Fair use excerpt. Read the whole article here.