Ron Paul About Social Media Censoring

Ron Paul tells RT on censorship of his Ron Paul Institute Facebook page. He also explains how government involvement in regulating social media actually helps social media monopolies maintain their top positions. Ron Paul wants to see more marketplace competition which would make big players such as Facebook and Twitter smaller.

Transcript:

We begin the show with the wild week with big tech what began with a president Donald Trump Twitter ban has led to purging of social media accounts some without notice. Well, our next guest lost access to his Facebook account citing a violation of community standards but it appears no details were provided, so let's welcome back former U.S republican congressman Ron Paul. Congressman thank you so much for being with us today. Can you start by just explaining to us what happened in your situation here with Facebook?

Well, I was caught by surprise. I guess that's about two days ago that I arrived and and the staff looks at the website right away and they say: hey they they cut us off there, which was a surprise to me because it's something for me personally. It's an article that I do every week, and it's an article defending liberty. I've been doing it every week since 1976. I've never had any controversy related to it, and all of a sudden they said: you don't follow community standards. And I was just dumbfounded, because you know the terminology is so weird. Who establishes community standards? At one station they interviewed me this and I was kidding and I said: so which way do I do? Do I get the standards from FOX or do I go to CNN or MSNBC to find out what community standards are? Where it was absurd, and then a few people including some good organizations went and started inquiring, and then the next day they say: oh it looks like we made a mistake, so we're letting you go back on again. But the intimidation is there. We felt intimidated even before that happened, so you can imagine how many other people are involved in and being exposed to this. It doesn't sound like it's pro-first amendment at all.

The the frustration over just being banned over something similar situations I've seen across the board, especially as of late, with this purge they're doing I believe a Facebook spokesperson did state that, let me read you this quote:: “while there were never any restrictions on Ron Paul's page, we restricted one admins ability to post by mistake. We have corrected the error. What did they say the supposedly that the error was even in the first place?

No, they never would tell us. But I felt restricted. I couldn't add anything and I couldn't change anything. But they didn't take anything off. That's the way I understand it. But it it didn't make any sense. And they talked about this one item, and I didn't at one time on that sentence I wasn't sure whether they were talking about some item on my staff or some item some individual you know with Facebook or just what was going on. But the whole thing was just anti-American for that matter. You know, intimidation and all of a sudden challenging what we were doing and then this whole thing is, when you try to pin them down or you look at it in between the lines, they're talking about people who are advocating violence, and anybody who knows me with my libertarian beliefs, I am very very pro peace. We're considered too much for peace, but that is what is so ridiculous about it to say that oh they sometimes people express terrorism on these sites, and they didn't accuse me of that, but that's sort of thrown in the basket like that when when you do these things. They say domestic terrorism, we have to watch it, we have to protect the community, so it's such a distortion of when the article of the 230 was established it was supposed to sort of guide those companies so that they would make sure that everybody had access to them. But what it's turned out now, the big companies, big tech this has given them license to regulate us and keep out the people not allow the people come in and make use of it. So it's really been messed up and I'm afraid that uh it's gonna be a while, but I'm still optimistic that technology is gonna come along and there's gonna be alternatives, and stations still do exist that allow us to speak like your station, so it has to be used but we can't be complacent about it. But of course so I'm in the business of just spreading information. I wish people would think that it's a decent information, just promoting peace and prosperity, that's what it stands for. Institute for Peace and Prosperity. Why should that be a threat to anybody?

I think individuals that run those companies are easily threatened. I think they're insecure. They have all the money in the world, and they have all the power and these things, but they still feel like, don't let anybody speak. And I keep thinking, you know, I'm a little outfit. Why would they come and nibble away at me and try to intimidate me? And so you know they do it to other people. But I think it's an incentive for people to look for alternatives. And I don't know the technology, but I'm a believer in technology. I believe that people who are aware of what's going on now will develop technology that will be available to an individual like myself, so that we can have the safety and security of expressing ourselves. At the same time, having decent rules and regulations of true advocacy of violence. And you know, in some ways to me in my mind it's sort of like why don't you treat them like a newspaper. Newspapers can't just slander people. At the same time there's a fair respect for freedom of speech.

Well much like you said, especially when their community guidelines or their standards are so rare, we've talked about this before here on the show, where we want to see this competition. It's almost like they're obviously trying to keep that competition out and control all of the social media. Ten years ago these startup firms, Facebook and Twitter, they were relatively small networking sites. Now they've obviously become these platforms for government and notable figures just as yourself, to communicate to the public. Like you said, you want to get your message out.

Since tech platforms have become so central for communication, how should government think about these channels? Do you think they should be regulated more than they are now?

I don't think reform and new regulations will do it. Because my beef is this the thing we're dealing with, big tech has been guarded and guided by a big government. I mean, how did the Internet get started and who who cooperates with big tech? Government! They use it for security purposes, you know. They're sort of in bed together. They receive money from government. That is the taxpayer, because they're providing a service. I don't think the government, now that big tech has learned to make a lot of money and the technology, is protecting them. But I think it's going to change. I think that people are going to get so upset, I think we've seen it this week Some of the stocks of the big tech companies actually went down and it's not automatic that the people will remain complacent forever. And I think there will be choices out there, and if it comes to the point where there are zero choices, our country's in bad shape. And I don't think we're that bad off, but the complacency has allowed us to get to this point where they feel encouraged to do whatever they want, and they make a lot of money at it. I think though that people need just to wake up.

Well congressman, do you see any where do you see the future of tech companies like Twitter and Facebook going?

Well hopefully they get smaller and smaller and lose their influence as they have the competition. Because, as soon as they see it you know they want to crack down on it. They think I'm participating in competition, you know. They'll go after anybody for that. But I think long term. But I don't want some people say we need more laws, we need to have laws against, you know, anti-trust laws, and their size is just too big. I don't think that's going to do it, because they control the legislative process, they will have legislation but they'll be the lobbyists and they will be able to write it. They write all this stuff, so if there's any type of regulation they'll be involved. So that's why I look toward the private sector, and literally preserving enough liberty, that's my goal. Where individuals can be creative enough that they can just really be competitors, and when the people get sick and tired of it, and believe me, that's what I sense, there's a lot of people now are seeing waking up and knowing what's happening. And I think what's also going to precipitate this is the need for the Internet to be unobstructed, because I think our economy is going to get so much worse and there's going to be people for looking to get their information out. Right now, you know, it's canned information, and that's what bothers me the most, because there's no really freedom of choice in what we get in generally speaking, And this Internet is sort of monolithic and sort of laying out there for everybody to accept or reject it.

Things are getting much worse. people are getting angry and hopefully this will somehow have people get more creative, and then create that competition we're talking about. Former US Republican congressman Ron Paul, we really appreciate you making time to join us today it's always great talking to you.

Thank you. Nice to be with you.

Source: RT Boom Bust YouTube channel