Social media and Big Tech have been at the forefront of the push to advance the government’s views on COVID. From censoring information on COVID treatments, shutting down criticism of the government’s approach to COVID, or engaging in campaigns to push acceptance of the COVID vaccine, Silicon Valley has acted as an arm of the government’s propaganda machine.
Now, thanks to insider leaks, we know that Mark Zuckerberg himself questioned the safety of the COVID vaccine, expressing some of the same concerns that Facebook subsequently sought to scrub from its platform. The hypocrisy is galling, but not exactly surprising. No one who really thinks through what this vaccine is or how it was developed wants to be a guinea pig for unproven technology with unknown future consequences. But punishing those who express concerns, especially when those concerns are the same ones held by your own CEO is just unconscionable.
It will be interesting to see just how much more hypocrisy we see coming from Big Tech in the coming months, as the COVID vaccine continues to roll out. Will Zuckerberg and other social media CEOs get the vaccine, or will they continue to express skepticism of the vaccine, its safety, and its effectiveness, something they won’t allow their customers to do? Will Big Tech require its employees to get the vaccine, or will they allow their employees to opt out, an option they won’t allow their users to advocate for on their platforms?
This is just another indicator that Big Tech is no friend of freedom, and is nothing more than the corporate arm of the government’s spin machine. Everything you hear from social media firms needs to be taken with a great grain of salt, as it very likely contradicts what their leaders actually believe. And this is just one more reason conservatives need to create viable alternatives to the dominant social media firms, so that we’re not at the mercy of these hypocrites any longer.
