While the First Amendment prohibits the government from taking criminal actions against people for sharing “bad” opinions, the government can encourage corporations to take direct actions against citizens that inflict serious social and—more importantly—financial harm.
YouTube demonetization, which is relatively common, is just one example. Bank account deplatforming, a method that’s increasingly common in the United States and Canada, is another.
“Financial deplatforming, or banking censorship, will be a common lever governments and companies reach for when it comes to censorship of political opinions,” said Annelise Butler in a 2022 Heritage Foundation article.
Ms. Butler said companies acquiescing to government requests to demonetize and censor users are “mirroring those of China’s social credit system.”
Interestingly Ms. Roth makes the same comparison in “You Will Own Nothing,” adding that she would have laughed off such a thing 10 years ago.
“Given that we are so close to social credit, with the social acceptance of moral judgment outside the legal system and the technical means to collect and analyze information at scale, the Chinese system provides a frightening road map,” Ms. Roth wrote.
This is what makes the government’s incestuous relationship with Big Tech and other companies so dangerous. Government officials can lean on companies to coerce them to punish dissent and Wrongthink, something it has done with great enthusiasm.
None of this is to say Russell Brand is guilty or innocent of the accusations against him, of course. We don’t know.
What we do know is that during the pandemic, Mr. Brand emerged as one of the leading voices against the government’s COVID regime, and he later became one of the most outspoken anti-war voices on YouTube. (We also know the FBI has a long history of using sexual indiscretions to control and silence powerful people.)
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