Foreign Censorship Influences U.S. Freedom

It has become disturbingly evident that there is a growing trend against free speech. The increased influence of international norms over U.S. standards bears a significant part of the responsibility, a pattern that will expand significantly when Obama’s move to place the internet under international control becomes complete before he leaves office.

But the President’s inappropriate internet divestment is only part of the problem. The number of excuses used to justify the disregard for America’s greatest achievement—the First Amendment—continues to grow. Political correctness, college “safe spaces,” campaign regulation, and other factors all play a role.

Of extraordinary importance is the desire of major communications companies to appease foreign dictatorships, in order to gain entry into their nations’ marketplace. Disturbingly, U.S. internet giants have demonstrated their willingness to reject American free speech principles in return for access to foreign markets.

The Bloomberg news service notes that:

“In recent years, founder Mark Zuckerberg has made clear his intention to bring the platform to China. To win favor, much to the amusement of Chinese netizens, he’s handed out copies of [General Secretary of the Communist Party of China] Xi’s tome, The Governance of China, to Facebook employees; showed off his Mandarin skills; and posted photos of himself jogging through hazardous Beijing smog. It remains to be seen whether that multi-faceted courtship will be effective.”

However, Bloomberg reports that Zennon Kapron, managing director of Shanghai-based consulting firm Kapronasia, believes that unless China’s censorship rules are incorporated into Facebook’s practices, the company will not succeed in its quest, noting that “All the kowtowing and meeting the leadership maybe won’t matter so much if Facebook won’t agree to allow some level of censorship, or allow the Chinese government access to data on the site, in exchange for market access,” Bloomberg notes that ‘Linkedin operates in China, but only by agreeing to abide by content restrictions.”
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China has moved to reduce its already limited tolerance for any semblance of free speech. The Financial Times notes that “Since Xi came to power, China’s situation has become more and more worrisome,’ says Murong Xuecun, a prominent author and commentator. ‘Things that we could openly discuss before, such as the Cultural Revolution, are now considered sensitive or even forbidden. In the past there was some room for non-governmental organisations and rights lawyers. Now all of them have been suppressed.’ In an internal document issued just a month after Mr Xi became president in March 2013 and later leaked, the Communist party identified the very notion of civil society as ‘an attempt to dismantle the party’s social foundation…That puts NGOs, journalists, activists, researchers at a much higher risk……China’s internet regulator moved to rein in original reporting by online news portals, in the latest setback for an already tightly muzzled media sector.”

Facebook has been increasingly criticized for its censorship activities, even outside of China. WND found that “Facebook…temporarily blocked talk-radio host Michael Savage from posting stories to his page after he put up a link to a story about a Muslim migrant killing a pregnant woman in Germany…In December, as WND reported, Facebook removed a post on Savage’s site of photographs of a 2006 protest outside the Embassy of Denmark in London that featured signs warning of beheading and death for ‘those who insult Islam.’ At that time, Facebook also ‘determined that it violated Facebook community standards.”

During the Cold War era, the influence of foreign information served to open up the closed societies behind the Communists’ “Iron Curtain.” Now, however, the reverse is occurring: the censorship proclivities of dictatorships of all kinds, Communist, Moslem extremists, or others, appear to be changing the free-speech culture of the West.

American cultural tolerance for the repression of free speech continues to grow. There has been little push back against U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s comments regarding criminal prosecution of those that disagree with the White House’s view on man-made climate change, or actions by state attorneys general to engage in legal harassment of think tanks with views counter to that of the President.

The trend is manifest on the streets, as well. The Gateway Pundit recently reported that “A young white man wearing one of Donald Trump’s red ‘Make America Great Again!” hats was violently forced out of New York City’s City Hall Park by a screaming Leftist racist mob of predominantly self-described ‘black and brown’ activists–all while police stood by and did nothing. The mob was gathered to protest police as part of a “#ShutDownCityHallNYC” rally in the park.

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.