Covid has emboldened our modern censors

The past year has accelerated all kinds of trends that were already moving through our societies. Social atomisation, the decline of the high street and communities, the rise of the nanny state — Covid and lockdown have brought all of these to the fore. Among the most concerning is the rise of Big Tech censorship, and the way in which a handful of Silicon Valley oligarchs have come to set the terms of debate and even rule on what is true.

This week representatives from Facebook and Twitter were brought before parliament to discuss their firms’ censorship of discussion around Covid. Two particularly pertinent cases were raised — though there are many more. The first was a statement by Martin Kulldorff, a professor at the Harvard Medical School and one of the key authors of the anti-lockdown Great Barrington Declaration. His tweet last month, suggesting that not everyone needed to be vaccinated, particularly those who had previously been infected, was labelled ‘misleading’ by Twitter.