Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders take the same position on Big Tech censorship, David Catron writes at The American Spectator. That deserves serious attention.

He’s right, but opposite of what he intends. When the mainstream “right” and “left” agree on anything, that’s almost always a blazing neon sign warning us that our freedoms are facing a threat.

Catron (with Trump and Sanders) want the US government to:

• Seize control of social media platforms.

• Dictate which users the platforms must accept and to what kind of content those platforms must permit publication. ‘

They don’t put it quite that boldly, of course, but who would?

Their cause is implicit in their criticisms of Big Tech as a monopoly requiring government regulation to promote competition in the “marketplace of ideas.”

Social media platforms aren’t monopolies. If you don’t like Facebook or Twitter, you can go to Minds, MeWe, Diaspora, Mastodon, Gab, Discord, et al. But the US government is a monopoly.

All of us are forced to “do business” with it and, in many areas, it forcibly forbids or limits competition with its own offerings.

Arguments in favor of government regulation of social media aren’t arguments against monopolies. They’re arguments in favor of extending the government monopoly’s reach into new markets.

In this case, markets constitutionally protected by the 1st Amendment and by its statute vis a vis the Internet, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

Social medias’ banning and content moderation decisions aren’t “censorship.”

Censorship is “you can’t say that.”

“You can’t use our platform to say that” isn’t censorship.

If you tell me I can’t sing my favorite Irish ballad and that if I do you’ll have me arrested – assuming you have the power to do it – that’s censorship.

If you tell me I can’t sing “Foggy Dew” on your front porch at midnight, that’s not censorship. I’m free to sing it on my own front porch, or on the sidewalk, or at karaoke night at the local bar.

In arguing the point, some of my friends point out that politicians bully major Internet platforms into “censoring by proxy.”

A popular example is US Rep.Adam Schiff successfully leaning on Amazon to remove “anti-vaccine” documentaries.

My friends are right. It is a problem.

Politicians trying to compel platforms to host speech they don’t want to host is the flip side of the same problem.

Whatever the solution to that problem may be, repeal of the 1st Amendment or “reform” of Section 230 aren’t part of it.

Ideally, bad actors like Schiff would be impeached and removed from office, or charged with conspiracy against rights (18 US Code § 241), or both.

Barring that, we should work to ensure that these evil-doers lose in Congress, in the courts and at the ballot box. We mustn’t sacrifice internet freedom, or freedom of speech and press to politicians’ schemes.

Thomas Knapp is William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism director (thegarrisoncenter.org).