There are concerns that the barons of the Information Revolution, much like the barons of the Industrial Revolution, are exploiting their content producers at an unsustainable clip, and creating a very dangerous bottleneck in the world of free speech. Given just how much of the internet’s traffic flows through just a few sites, it is imperative that we keep a keen eye on what platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are doing.  They are the new gatekeepers of nearly the entire breadth of current information, and if they were to choose to keep us in the dark on any particular issue, it would be quite easy for them to do so. That’s why the latest news from YouTube is so terrifying. YouTube said Sunday it had barred Sky News Australia from uploading new content for one week, citing concerns about Covid-19 misinformation. The move comes after a review of posts uploaded by the Rupert Murdoch-owned TV channel, which has a substantial online presence. “We have clear and established Covid-19 medical misinformation policies… to prevent the spread of Covid-19 misinformation that could cause real-world harm,” a YouTube statement said. With 1.86 million YouTube subscribers, the channel — which is owned by a subsidiary of Murdoch’s News Corp — has a conservative following well beyond Australia. The mainstream media and the mainstream social networks haven’t always gotten their COVD info right, either, which makes their declarations regarding “misinformation” all the more laughable. Early on in the pandemic, these platforms pushed back against the possibility that the virus itself may have been a part of some sort of lab leak, even going so far as to censor any such discussion.  Over a year later, and as health experts began to suggest this yes, this was truly a possibility, the premature nature of…

Some of our elected officials just don’t seem to understand the optics game in the least bit, as though they are somehow shielded from certain types of criticisms altogether.  The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to expose these sorts of issues in a very big way, as well, with any number of politicians who think that their own COVID rules don’t apply to them. In Washington DC, the weekend provided us with yet another example of such hypocrisy. Fewer than 24 hours after Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser celebrated her 49th birthday with a DJ and comedian Dave Chappelle, she officiated a wedding at The Line DC, a four-star hotel in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of the city. Despite the mayor’s order, the wedding reception featured hundreds of unmasked guests served by dozens of wait staff, including a conspicuously unmasked Bowser. Bowser, who was not sitting at the table designated for her during wedding toasts, did not wear a mask despite not actively eating or drinking. When approached by the Washington Examiner to explain why she was maskless at an event now legally obligated to enforce mask compliance, security blockaded the free press. The incident was reminiscent of a moral catastrophe committed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi some months ago, after the Democratic Congresswoman was seen galavanting around mask-less inside of a hair salon in The Golden State, despite the fact that local ordinances prohibited both mask-less and indoor styling appointments.