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This past semester in school I took a class, Authorship in the Digital Age, in which we focused on how media and technology is changing the way we view/approach authorship and writing. Our final project, consisting of a research paper and a creative component that would help highlight what we found, asked us to do a deep dive into an area of interest where media and technology are affecting authorship.

I choose to write about the ethics surrounding censorship, but with a particular focus on the outspoken voices of Covid-19. I wanted to highlight some of doctors, scientists, and journalists, who I feel have been wrongly censored over there claims of Covid/vaccine hesitancy. Although this may be a research paper for an academic setting, my professor gave us permission to loosen up the reigns that one normally expects when writing a traditional research paper (meaning it might not be as dry as you think).

If this is an area of interest for you, I also wrote a short fiction piece for the creative component of this project. I tried to weave little pieces of the cases that I presented in the research portion as I thought it would tie in the main focus of my project––censorship and ethics among social media. You can find that here: This Post Has Been Removed.

As we continue to push deeper into the uncharted territories of Covid-19, it is imperative that we give all voices an equal chance to be heard, and not just the ones that fit a particular narrative/agenda.

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INTRODUCTION

We now live in a time where any voice can bubble to the surface for a chance to take
center stage, but is this beneficial? Or does it do more harm than good? One area whereas a
nation this has been highlighted the most is among the top social media companies such as
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, specifically with the voices of doctors, scientists,
and journalists who have stated their concern on the efficacy of the Covid-19 vaccination and its
mandates. Ultimately, those voices have been censored for violating the platforms Covid-19
guidelines of spreading misinformation. Many people feel that this is warranted as it can lead to
significant risk or potential harm, which is true. But what happens when these outspoken voices
are wrongfully convicted? How do we right those wrongs? This paper will investigate and argue
for those wrongful convictions. It will also look into the potential ethical violations of
disingenuous censorship on behalf of these platforms. Censorship to a certain degree may be of
some benefit as we work to navigate the ever-changing landscape that is the internet. However,
disingenuous censorship is something that must be monitored very closely if we expect to move
towards a more symbiotic way of living.

THE GROUNDWORK

Before we can begin anywhere, I believe that it is essential to layout some groundwork.
The groundwork in this case starts with clearly defining censorship and understanding when we
can and cannot censor someone as part of the First Amendment. In an article on censorship by
Elizabeth Purdy, writer for The Free Speech Center, she goes on to give a general, universal
clear layout of what exactly censorship is: Any one person or a group trying to suppress the
work, words, or images of an individual would fall under the category of censorship (Purdy,
2009). Censorship is nothing new though and even dates all the way back to 1400’s when the
printing press was invented––even the Bible had attempts on being silenced by the church.
However, there is some speech that the First Amendment doesn’t look out for such as: libel and
slander, “fighting words,” obscenity, and sedition (Purdy, 2009). Should one be in violation of
the First Amendment by inciting violence or defaming someone’s name, then they will go
through a system of checks and balances to get to a proper verdict; as per Trump on the day of
the storming of the capital. His tweets leading up to the takeover were tweets that all incited
violence in some way and I feel that this was a just act of censorship. I think it is hard to argue
against his case; but unlike the cases that we are about to dive into, the lines in the sand around
censorship begin to get blurred.

CASE #1 – DR. PIERRE KORY

WHO: Our first case that we will look at is that of Dr. Pierre Kory, a Wisconsin Intensive Care
Physician and Lung Specialist.

CLAIM: Dr. Kory appeared on a U.S. Senate committee hearing back on December 8th, 2020.
During the hearing, Dr. Kory suggested the use of ivermectin––a cheap repurposed drug that is
mostly used in tropical climates to help fight off parasites––in the fight against Covid-19. He
went on to talk about a study from Argentina in which about 800 health-care workers received
ivermectin and 400 didn’t. Not one of the 800 contracted Covid-19; 58% of the 400 did
(Johnson,2021). Dr. Kory then asked the National Institute of Health to consider updating their
guidelines after reviewing his group’s illumination of the successful trials to allow ivermectin to
be used in the treatment of Covid-19 (Johnson, 2021).

CENSORED: This hearing was recorded and uploaded to YouTube and would go on to gain
more than 8 million views––that was until YouTube decided that it “violated their Covid-19
policy and was spreading misinformation.” Ultimately, the clip was pulled from their site. But in
no way was this in violation of their guidelines and we can see that here:

“YouTube doesn’t allow content that spreads medical misinformation that contradicts
local health authorities’ or the World Health Organization’s (WHO) medical information about
COVID-19. This is limited to content that contradicts WHO or local health authorities’ guidance
on” (YouTube):
• Treatment
• Prevention
• Diagnosis
• Transmission
• Social distancing and self isolation guidelines
• The existence of COVID-19
This is the problem that we face and it’s a problem that we face on multiple levels. First, we see
that Dr. Kory was not in violation of any parts of this policy. He didn’t say that ivermectin
should be used in place of vaccines or anything to discredit the WHO. He merely presented data
and science and made a recommendation to investigate other potential alternative methods of
treatment in the battle against Covid-19. Another issue we see is in the entire policy itself not
allowing any information other than information from the WHO to be taken into consideration. It
essentially means that YouTube backs the WHO as the end all be all when it comes to anything
Covid related––which one can argue for. But I mean, ultimately the point of a committee hearing
is the chance to “persuade others based on evidence, data, and reason,” is it not (Filer, J & Prasad
V, 2020)?

We have physicians and scientists who put their necks on the line as they speak against
the mainstream narrative by presenting other alternative, cheaper ways to potentially treat
people, and “instead of being rewarded, they are being censored, ostracized, vilified in the press,
even fired.,” says Senator Ron Johnson in his Wall Street Journal article, “YouTube Cancels the
U.S. Senate” (Johnson, 2021). It’s one thing to censor the crazy aunt on Facebook who only post
conspiracy theories, but when social media platforms take it into their own hands that they know
more than the doctors and scientists who have spent their lives studying this stuff, then we have a
major issue on our hands. We absolutely need doctors and scientists to be able to weigh in on the
Covid discussion without fear of being censored for being in opposition of the WHOs stance––an
issue where ethical violations on part of the social media platform need to be further examined
and held accountable if in the wrong.

CASE #2 – JOHN IOANNIDIS

WHO: The next voice to be censored that we’ll look at is that of John Ioannidis, Stanford
University Professor and one of the world’s most leading epidemiologists.

CLAIM: During the beginning of the pandemic, Ioannidis wrote an article, “A fiasco in the
making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable
data.” His major claim was with the evidence being so low at the time, he wasn’t sure if extreme
lockdowns were in society’s best interest as they could potentially do more harm than good
(Jamison, 2020). He wasn’t going off speculation, he was going off the science and data that we
had at the time.

CENSORED: This article received extreme backlash and he was even censored over these
claims. After 500,000 views and six weeks later, a clip of him publicly speaking about this idea
had been scrubbed from YouTube (Jamison, 2020). YouTube had claimed that Ioannidis had
violated their policies on Covid for spreading misinformation. While some may not agree with
how Ioannidis presented the article, he never spread misinformation. According to Jamison,
“Ioannidis, 55, insists he is doing what he has always done: following the data and sometimes
contending with the head winds of conventional wisdom or popular opinion. He says
governments should focus on protecting the sick and elderly from infection while keeping
businesses and schools open for the less vulnerable” (Jamison, 2020). Again, he made a
calculated hypothesis based on real time science and data––as he did about the second wave of
Covid-19 and ended up saving lives––and presented it as such.

Knowing what we know now, some will easily argue that Ioannidis was wrong all along but,
there are others who will say that we overstayed our welcome on the lockdowns as it took a
vicious toll on small business and mental health of the masses. Whether we agree with him or not
is not the focus here. The focus goes back to censorship and whether this was justified. I for one,
think it was an upsetting display of censorship and rather than YouTube appealing to the greater
good, in my eyes, this raised many red flags and was a clear abuse of power. We can close out
this section with a perspective on censorship from Ioannidis himself: “I think it’s very scary
when we try to suppress scientific thinking and investigation, whatever the reason might be,” he
said. “Conveying more certainty than there is does not save lives” (Jamison, 2020).

CASE #3 – ALEX BERENSON

WHO: And the last censored voice that we’ll look at is that of Alex Berenson, journalist and a
former New York Times reporter.

CLAIM/CENSORED: Berenson was recently on the Joe Rogan Experience where they
discussed how he was banned from twitter for violating their Covid-19 policy about spreading
misinformation. He had several “repeated violations” leading up to the last tweet that got him
permanently banned: “It doesn’t stop infection, or transmission. Don’t think of it as a vaccine.
Think of it as therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy, and terrible side effect profile that
must be dosed in advance of illness. We want to mandate it? Insanity” (Rogan, 2021). Joe goes
on to say that this was probably the best example that he has come across of “egregious
censorship that is ideologically based” (Rogan, 2021). “I don’t know what their code of conduct
is, whether it’s about someone being malicious, or it’s about someone being untruthful, or
misrepresentation of the facts. You did none of those things. You really didn’t. I watched it very
closely” (Rogan, 2021).

There are some points that need to be noted here first: I have not seen Alex’s previous tweets, so
it is hard for me to get a good gauge of his entire backstory with twitter. All I have is this one
tweet to base things off, and the entirety of that podcast. Second, while I may not 100% agree
with his wording of the final tweet that got him kicked off Twitter, I think it far from warrants
someone to get deplatformed because there is nothing inaccurate about that tweet. You may not
like how he presented it––as with the Ioannidis case––but there’s no lies within the tweet itself.
Alexs book, Pandemia: How Coronavirus Hysteria Took Over Our Government, Rights, and
Lives, is set to be published on November 30, 20201 where he says that every one of his claims
that he made on twitter, or on the podcast will be backed in that book.

WHY THE CENSORSHIP?

The voices that we just looked at all had data and science to back their claims, so then why
would we see censorship? A hypothesis that we see enters the domain of money and political
power and is our most plausible hypothesis without getting lost in the world of conspiracies
(Bicheno, 2019). Bicheno starts his piece off by stating the importance of remembering that these
platforms––YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter specifically––are “commercial operations with
obligations to maximize returns to their investors” (Bicheno, 2019).

Already we can begin to see the picture being painted. Investors invest their money into a
product (social media platforms); product and investor now become intertwined and anything
that may oppose the investor is bad for business. But what would oppose the investor? The
answer is the content that these platforms host as they have no affiliation to what is put out. It
could then make perfect sense to receive pressure from an investor to get rid of any content that
messes with their message and this would be nothing new in the world of media, Bicheno argues
(Bicheno, 2019). One could easily counter by highlighting the simple fact that Facebook and
these other social media platforms have the last say in what content can and can’t be published
on their sites. This is true. They’re protected under the First Amendment. But the issue at hand is
that these platforms are where much of discussions takes place now a days and to continually
silence voices that go against either an ideology, narrative, or investors is an ethical violation and
outright dangerous (Bicheno, 2019). It pushes forward a particular agenda. “The commodity at
stake is not money but the ability to take part in public discussion,” says Bicheno (Bicheno,
2019).

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Truth of the matter is it may be a while before we see significant change. All of these platforms
are protected under Section 230 which is part of the Communications Decency Act (Bambauer,
2020). Section 230 is a law that’s about 25 years old and “gives internet companies tremendous
protection against lawsuits related to their content decisions” (Rogan, 2021). Basically, there are
two parts of Section 230. The first part saves these internet companies from being sued for
something that their platform unknowingly has on their website such as “violations of federal
criminal law, wiretapping statutes, intellectual property rules, and (most recently) online sex
trafficking” (Bambauer, 2020). The second part gives them freedom to make decisions about
what they choose to host in good faith and can’t be held liable for those decisions (Rogan, 2021).
This essentially saves them from whatever they choose to host or not host. So, if they have
investors or some other third party telling them to get rid of these tweets or this video because
it’s in conflict with what’s being promoted, they can do it no questions asked; but this is where
the line needs to get drawn and I believe is slowly happening.

It is apparent that over the last two years censorship has risen to an all-time high as these
social media platforms are not afraid to pull the plug on unsightly authorship, thanks to Section 230. But there are pushes to reform Section 230 and many of these voices are now filing for
lawsuits to further investigate the platform’s decision to censor. This would force the platform to
come clean as to exactly what their ruling was based on as most of the time they work in
ambiguous matters. Our way out of this mess seems to be accountability and truth. If social
media platforms continue to have the freedom to censor at their discretion without repercussions
if ruled unjust, we will only see abuse of power from these platforms get stronger. We now live
in a time that in order to move closer towards truth, all voices need to be heard and given a fair
shot to take center stage, not just the ones that fit a particular agenda or are paid for.

Works Cited

Bambauer, D. (2020, July 1
st) How Section 230 reform endangers internet free speech.
Brookings.edu. https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/how-section-230-reformendangers-internet-free-speech/

Bicheno, S. (2019, May 10th) Social media censorship is a public concern and needs a public
solution. Telecoms.com. https://telecoms.com/497273/social-media-censorship-is-apublic-concern-and-needs-a-public-solution/

Filer, J. S. & Prasad, V. (2020, April 27th) Scientists who express different views on Covid-19
should be heard, not demonized. STAT News.

Jamison, P. (2020, December 16th) A top scientist questioned virus lockdowns on Fox News. The
backlash was fierce. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-mdva/2020/12/16/john-ioannidis-coronavirus-lockdowns-fox-news/

Johnson, R. (2021, February 2nd) YouTube Cancels the U.S. Senate. The Wall Street Journal.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/youtube-cancels-the-u-s-senate-11612288061

Purdy, E. R. (2009) Censorship. The First Amendment Encyclopedia https://www.mtsu.edu/firstamendment/article/896/censorship

Rogan, J. (2009-present). #1717 – Alex Berenson [Audio Podcast]. The Joe Rogan Experience.
https://open.spotify.com/show/4rOoJ6Egrf8K2IrywzwOMk