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"'Censorship!' cries the right, even as the left hollers 'Twitter?s not the government!' But... this isn?t really a great example of censorship, private or public."

"What it does represent is something the right has becom[e] keenly alive to: the left?s exercise of power over cultural spaces where right-wingers are being driven toward extinction. That power isn?t new, of course, but for a long time, its practical effect was mostly a matter of focus, or at worst, as social psychologist Jonathan Haidt puts it, asking 'Can I believe it?' about narratives that flattered left-wing views, and 'Must I believe it?' about those that favored the right.... Sure, Twitter insists that the Biden story violated prior policy about publishing potentially hacked materials, lest the platform encourage further malfeasance ? but would Twitter apply that standard to the recent New York Times investigation of Trump?s tax returns, considering that whoever leaked them to the Times quite possibly committed a federal crime?... I myself am alternately enraged and grieved by our president; I aspire to expedite his exit from the national stage by every legal means. But I do wonder whether the sort of thing we saw on Wednesday actually accelerates the arrival of that happy day ? or whether the left, like Streisand, might be contributing to the very outcome they most want to avoid.... [S]uch actions can only call attention to how lopsided and largely unaccountable the left?s own power is in the cultural sphere. There?s a reason that President Trump likes to spotlight that imbalance.... So if you want to hasten him out of office, a preemptive self-balancing, rather than a more muscular tilt, might be the counterweight America actually needs." 

Full post as published by Althouse on October 17, 2020 (boomark / email).