American journalist Adam Molon wrote a book last Thursday (Jan. 14) about his experience with speech censorship in the United States. He said he never thought he would experience this kind of social media environment and censorship in the U.S., which made him feel as if he were in totalitarian China. He warns that CCP-style censorship has already begun in the U.S. and must not be allowed to continue.
A translation of Morong’s article follows.
Last week, I stood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Not on Jan. 6, the day President Trump (Trump) announced a protest against election fraud, but on Jan. 5, the day before.
I was standing next to my U.S. Representative Jim Baird, a Vietnam veteran with two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star for bravery, who also has a doctorate. One of his staff members was taking our picture. I had arranged a meeting in advance through his office and explained to him that I would be in Washington to protest the attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election from Americans through alleged election fraud, of which Peter Navarro detailed in his report that there was plenty of evidence.
A few hours later, I was proud to meet my legislators and was looking forward to the next day’s protest. I was ready to put my rare political post on Facebook.
Since I joined Facebook in college, my main feeling has been that it is a positive and encouraging environment. It’s a world where people say “haha”, “cool” and “congratulations”. After all, Facebook users are called friends, and if a post doesn’t get a “thumbs up,” people usually follow the rule that says, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.
While I expected that my post might not be appreciated by some and might even get some disagreeable followers or attempts to start a heated debate, I never expected a storm of personal attacks from the few people who are my friends on Facebook.
Under a post posing for a photo with my Congressman on the steps of the Capitol, I wrote
“Tomorrow, for the first time, I will publicly protest the massive fraud in the 2020 election and the attempted theft of the Office of the President, as enumerated in Dr. Peter Navarro’s report, “The Perfect Deception. Americans for an honest electoral system, voter rights, and the future success of our country. Vote-by-mail fraud to change election results in multiple states under the pretext of health issues surrounding the totalitarian CCP coronavirus bluff must be banned. All legal and constitutional avenues must be followed to defend the principles of freedom, democracy and human rights that the United States and we advocate around the world.”
Within minutes of my posting, the first follow-up post appeared. A Facebook friend replied, “You’re kidding, right?” Then he added, “What’s wrong with you? Shame on you.” I replied, “You have the right to express your opinion and freedom. This is America.”
I got a lot of support from people, but some of my Facebook friends accidentally did something out of the ordinary. Instead of discussing the content of my posts, they launched irrational personal attacks against me. Some of the other slanders were very ugly and baseless attacks, but I ignored them and don’t need to repeat them here.
The next night, after my peaceful participation in the Washington protest, my original post had over 50 followers. That’s when I received a post from a French Facebook friend who is now in China, where I used to study and work for many years and knew him then.
The friend, who still lives in China, politely stated at the bottom of my post that he didn’t understand why I called China “authoritarian China” and why I replied to another friend by saying that “the world is waking up from the evil of the People’s Republic of China”. He found the substance of my calm and respectful remark, which was not an insult, refreshing.
I responded in the same polite manner, asking him why he was using Facebook in China when it was against Chinese law. I asked him if, as a French citizen, he would tolerate the restrictions (by the Chinese Communist Party) on his free access to information, since Chinese citizens are severely restricted in what they can access online. I also spoke about the long-standing threat of the authoritarian Chinese Communist Party’s attempts to usurp and subjugate free and democratic Taiwan, saying, “Taiwan’s 24 million people have freedom and human rights and have kept the light of their soul. Why does the Chinese Communist Party insist on dragging the people of Taiwan into the darkness of a world that lacks the right to freedom?”
A few minutes later, as my French friend was apparently drafting a response to me, my Facebook post disappeared. A Facebook notice appeared on my screen saying that my post about taking a picture with a U.S. Congressman and comments about the 2020 presidential election had been removed. This is the first time my posts have been deleted by Facebook.
Not wanting my friends to think that I deleted my original post, I uploaded a new Facebook post saying, “Friends, the photo of me as a voter meeting with a federal congressman and that post about the 2020 presidential election argument was deleted by Facebook a few minutes ago. I never thought I would encounter this kind of censorship in the United States.”
The Facebook friend who said “Are you kidding me?” under my now-deleted original post, proudly said. The same Facebook friend who proudly replied under my new post said, “Because I reported you.” One of my undergraduate professors condemned this frank response as disrespectful of free speech.
Encountering further censorship
On January 7, the day after my article “Why I’m Taking Part in the Protest for the First Time on January 6” was published in the English-language Epoch Times, I posted it on LinkedIn and said, “This article explains why I decided to exercise my right to join a peaceful protest yesterday with many of my fellow citizens from across the country to stop the attempt to steal the the American people’s 2020 election. I hope this article will help readers better understand the threats faced, why Americans are protesting what is happening in the 2020 election, and why the totalitarian Chinese Communist Party wants President Trump replaced on January 20.”
The next day, the same day that Trump was permanently blocked from Twitter, my post disappeared from Collage with no explanation. In response, I posted a new Collage post saying, “Friends, my post on Collage yesterday explaining why I decided to exercise my right to peacefully protest what happened in the 2020 election …… was removed from Collage today with no explanation. “
“I used to live in China for a few years and there is no freedom of speech there. On Chinese social media, if you post something that is censored or deleted, the euphemism used to describe it is ‘harmonized’. It seems my post has been ‘harmonized’ by Collage today.”
I continued, “As an American, writer and journalist, I value my basic rights, including freedom of speech. Today’s censorship on social media in the U.S. reminds me of my life in China, where people usually self-censor their speech to avoid being censored by government censors, or indeed, being censored by the government. I never thought I would experience this kind of social media environment and this kind of censorship in the United States.”
As an American who has witnessed firsthand the totalitarian CCP’s annihilation of freedom (including freedom of speech) and the soul of human rights, I am sounding the alarm today that Chinese-style censorship has arrived in the United States and we must not let it continue.
Recent Comments