The censorship purge follows a familiar pattern with lefty activists posing as experts warning of the dangers of unrestricted speech and then being amplified by the media which has both a political and economic interest in suppressing political dissent. And how can you possibly settle for banishing conservative speech from every internet platform without addressing the massive megaphone of cable television which is dominated by a handful of lefty companies?

“We are going to have to figure out the OAN and Newsmax problem. These companies have freedom of speech, but I’m not sure we need Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and such bringing them into tens of millions of homes,” @alexstamos tells @brianstelter

That’s the familiar argument.

They have freedom of speech but since our political allies are monopolies, not the government, we can take it away from them.

Last week, I warned that this was part of what was coming in, This Is How Conservatives Get Erased From the Internet. In an earlier post, I noted that the handful of providers in the cable and mobile space would make it very easy for them to turn off the tap.

AT&T is the parent company of CNN. Something Brian fails to note. But that would be elementary ethical journalism.

The problem here is that while AT&T and Comcast are lefty companies, cable customers tend to be older and more conservative. And customers are already cutting the cable cord. Deplatforming President Trump is one thing. There’s a reason conservative cable news tends to lead. Eliminating it would lead to an exodus of older customers who aren’t buying $100 bucks a month to watch A&E or HBO. So it might not happen just yet. But then again I wouldn’t take any bets.

.