Censorship of speech in any form, besides direct threats, isn’t a good move for anyone who actually cares about free speech. Your worst enemy could say the most vile thing, but it is their right to say it. But, when something is done to prove a point against tyranny, it can be funny at times. You have to be able to laugh during these difficult times or you’ll lose your mind.
That being said, an internet provider in Idaho has blocked Facebook and Twitter from its service citing the two platforms “censorship of our customers and information.”
Your T1 WIFI is an internet service provider based in Northern Idaho and has customers throughout the Northern Idaho and Spokane, Washington areas. The company says that they’ve had customers call in to complain about both Facebook and Twitter, saying their complaints indicated that they “didn’t want their children to be able to access them.”
“Our company does not believe a website or social networking site has the authority to censor what you see and post and hide information from you, stop you from seeing what your friends and family are posting," a Your T1 WIFI email read, according to KREM. "This is why with the amount of concerns, we have made this decision to block these two websites from being accessed from our network.”
Anyone with a functioning brain understands the point Your T1 WIFI is making with their decision to remove access to Facebook and Twitter from their service. And we can all have a good laugh about it…for a minute. Then again, if a large swath of their customers are asking for those sites to be removed as Your T1 WIFI says they are, then that provider can do what they want.
But essentially banning Facebook and Twitter from its service is akin to Amazon removing Parler from its web hosting service. Two wrongs don’t make a right.