If you are old enough to remember Howard Beale in the 1976 classic movie “Network,” the line you most likely recall first is his telling his viewers to go to their windows, stick their heads out, and yell these words to the nation:
“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”
Well, I had my Howard Beale moment yesterday shortly after posting a link on LinkedIn to an analysis, by epidemiologist and McCullough Foundation administrator Nicolas Hulscher, of medical studies that strongly suggest the mRNA Covid Vaccine wreaks havoc on a woman’s reproductive cell production.
One of the studies, focused on a group of rats, found a 66% reduction in “primordial follicles, the foundational egg supply for future fertility.” But a second study of 1.3 million vaccinated Czech women assessed by Hulscher was even more disturbing. That study concluded there was a 33% reduction in human females, and that the lost egg capacity is irreversible.
It doesn’t take a medical science genius or ace demographer to figure out that a one-third reduction in the human birth rate around the world could be catastrophic for all of us. And if that’s the case, shouldn’t everybody be able to read the studies and reach their own conclusions about their credibility?
Not according to LinkedIn, which censored that post as “false or misleading.” I was told I could appeal the decision of the LinkedIn censors. I did so and specifically requested that the particular offending passage in the post be identified to me and an explanation provided in writing for why it was deemed so offensive to justify censoring it.
Next, I searched high and low on LinkedIn’s website for contact information for the corporation’s executive leadership. For whatever reason, the only person I could find was Ryan Rolansky, described as providing “leadership” for LinkedIn.
Here’s what I texted Rolansky:
“Your company censored a post I put up earlier today claiming it contains ‘false or misleading information.’ But nowhere in your notice does it point to specific examples of false or misleading information. This is pure censorship without due process.
“I ask you to identify for me the specific LinkedIn employee who made this decision and then direct them to provide to me in writing the specific grounds of their decision to censor my post.”
No explanation has been forthcoming from Rolansky or anybody else at LinkedIn, and we all know, of course, none will be provided because there will be no negative consequences for LinkedIn as a result of either ignoring my requests or providing merely perfunctory, meaningless cliches.
So what does any of this have to do with Howard Beale? All of the Big Tech social media giants enjoy special protection under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that enables them to censor anything and never have to explain specifically why they did it. That provision also enables social media to be immune from legal liabilities that are standard operating procedure in traditional print and broadcast media.
This permits nothing less than Censorship Without Due Process and an ongoing explosion of constitutional outrages. The First Amendment guarantees every American freedom of speech without qualification — except, as noted by the Supreme Court, shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater that is not in fact burning, inciting mob violence, or advocating treason.
You would think, if only as a matter of common decency and/or business sense, that LinkedIn and other Big Tech social media censors would at least provide an opportunity to their censorship victims for a discussion of the offending passages and of revisions the author might agree to in order to preserve publication.
This would be particularly vital when the issue at hand concerns public health matters such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the mRNA vaccines federal officials mandated. And LinkedIn’s published warning against posting “false or misleading information” notably includes this sentence:
“Do not share content that directly contradicts guidance from leading public health organizations and public health authorities; including false information about the safety or efficacy of vaccines or medical treatments.”
In other words, keep your friggin mouth shut, regardless if you are a world-renowed scientist, a highly respected medical expert, or just a Joe Blow Citizen, and don’t dare question anything our public health Guardians are telling you to do.
They get away with this because the censors within government and Big Tech social media have all of the advantages, including, in recent years, the active encouragement of the White House during the previous administration.
Related: Biden Era Was the Ultimate Application—and Utterly Predictable Failure—of the Cloward-Piven Strategy
The May 2024 report of the House Judiciary Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government describes in detail how the Biden administration coerced Big Tech social media to censor disfavored political views, including critics of the response to the Covid Pandemic and the immediate and long-term effects of the mRNA vaccine.
The report exposes “the behind-the-scenes efforts of the Biden White House to censor political opponents and disfavored views. For example, on just the third day of the Biden Administration, the White House emailed Twitter (now X) personnel to demand that a tweet by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. be ‘removed ASAP.’ The directive was not limited to just Kennedy; in the same email, the Biden White House asked Twitter to also ‘keep an eye out for tweets that fall in this same genre.’”
There are millions of Americans who have experienced the same kind of censorship. For years, it has been assumed that nothing could be done to stop the Big Tech social media censorship unless Congress rewrites Section 230. There are efforts in Congress to do that, but not a lot of progress is evident.
But what if those same millions of Americans got together? I wondered initially if there might be grounds for some sort of class-action litigation. I inquired about this with the chief of one of the right’s most effective and best-known government transparency advocates. His response was “probably not.”
Okay, maybe the class-action route isn’t feasible, but this is America, and there’s got to be something else we Americans can do to protect our First Amendment right to freedom of speech.
There are a lot of people reading this who are a heck of a lot smarter than I am about such matters, so please share suggestions in the comments.
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