The Issue: Sen. Josh Hawley’s column on his experience being deplatformed.
I write in response to Sen. Josh Hawley’s lachrymose lamentation, tinged with defiance, in your paper (“Welcome to life in the new cancel culture,” Jan. 25).
What the senator doesn’t seem to understand is that these tech giants have absolutely no obligation to publish his thoughts.
They are private companies that have the freedom to platform who they want and cancel who they want.
Their decision not to allow Hawley on their sites is a business decision, and these corporations are not bound by the First Amendment.
His arguments about being muzzled by private corporations are specious and a distraction.
Usha Nellore
Bel Air, Md.
Sen. Hawley’s piece should be required reading for every American of good will, regardless of political inclination.
It is the best, clearest and most cogent distillation of the real danger our freedoms are in that I have seen to date.
Notably, it comes from the pen of a person who himself has been and continues to be a victim of the twin danger that right-leaning Americans face now but that eventually will threaten the liberty of all Americans — the unholy alliance of the state and the behemoth high-tech corporations.
The Democratic Party, with scarcely any exceptions, has joined the feeding frenzy of cancel culture.
Vincent Puleo
Staten Island
I read with interest the senator’s column on censorship and the cancel culture, which he implies is raging in America.
But I did not see in his column that the censorship happened only after the Jan. 6 riot at our nation’s capital.
A murdered police officer and four other deaths were a direct result of the president’s call to action (not to mention Hawley’s fist wave to the assembled masses).
These are self-serving words by a man who precipitated a shameful and unlawful act, and yet will not acknowledge it.
Jerry Thompson
Sparta, NJ
Boo hoo, Sen. Hawley. You’re doing exactly what President Trump did in office: Deflecting by saying that your approval rating has dropped because of the left and corporations.
Wrong. It dropped because you gave a fist bump to the protesters before the insurrection.
You got the message across that you backed it and saw nothing wrong. You should resign from office.
D. Gold
Brooklyn
Hawley’s column on the left’s determination to silence conservative speech is excellent in its content and meaning. The bottom line for me is that it is us against them.
All my life, I have felt free to debate any issue with other people who do not agree with my views, in a cordial and respectful manner. After the debate we still remain amenable to each other and not enemies, as is the current trend in America.
Now, the Democrats, mainstream media, big tech and major corporations want to take the right of free speech away from us.
I will not let them do it, and I call on all decent Americans to fight back for your freedoms rather than let Big Brother take them away from you.
Richard Ketay
Newark, NJ
Hawley’s piece claimed he was canceled for opposing Pennsylvania’s electors, who were picked “in violation of the state constitution.”
Except they weren’t. A federal judge said so, in one of the many court cases that threw out baseless challenges like these.
The judge was a former Republican Party official who has been a member of the Federalist Society and the National Rifle Association.
Hawley knows this. And he knows the Justice Department said there actually wasn’t widespread fraud, and the top US cybersecurity official said the election actually was secure. But he chose to keep lying. There’s really not a nicer word for it.
Cancel culture exists, and should be called out. But so do liars, and they should be confronted with the truth.
Michael Ryan
Manhattan