December 23, 2025
Banhammer vs. Megaphone
Deplatforming Backfired
Internet hit the mute button — and turned up the volume
TLDR: An op-ed says bans backfired, pointing to Trump’s return, Tucker’s bigger audience, and Musk’s crowd fact-checks. Comments split between “unprovable what‑if,” examples where bans work (sanctions, adult content), and a chorus claiming it’s just the Streisand effect — a fight shaping how speech gets policed online.
An opinion piece declares the Big Ban Era totally backfired: Trump’s comeback, Tucker’s bigger audience, and Elon Musk’s crowd fact-checks supposedly prove that “deplatforming doesn’t work.” The comments lit up like a fireworks display. Skeptics pounced, calling the core claim an “unfounded counterfactual,” arguing nobody can know what would’ve happened if the bans never happened. Meanwhile, another chorus shouted: bans do work — pointing to a pulled CBS 60 Minutes segment, financial sanctions, and adult-content crackdowns as receipts. A third faction swears censorship has actually escalated, invoking word bans in reports and TV license threats — all while riffing on Rep. AOC’s Marvel-style “villain’s hand reemerges” meme. The crowd’s favorite punchline? The Streisand effect: try to hush someone and you blast them into celebrity. Users traded greatest hits: the Hunter Biden laptop saga, COVID “shadow bans,” the Twitter Files, Biden’s phantom “28th Amendment” getting smacked by community notes, and the New York Post hilariously note-checked for a fake bigfoot clip. Meta-drama piled on when one commenter fumed the post was flagged. Verdict from the bleachers: the internet’s banhammer is either a megaphone or a mute — and today’s thread is the cage match
Key Points
- •The article argues deplatforming high-profile figures since 2021 backfired, citing Donald Trump’s return to the White House and Tucker Carlson’s audience growth.
- •It recounts early-2020s moderation actions: AWS deplatformed Parler; Facebook and Twitter restricted the New York Post’s Hunter Biden story; and scientists critical of COVID-19 policies were allegedly throttled, including Jay Bhattacharya.
- •The article says Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter led to the Twitter Files, which purportedly showed government pressure on platforms to suppress certain speech.
- •It cites emails by NIH Director Francis Collins criticizing Jay Bhattacharya and claims Bhattacharya later became NIH director, with Martin Kulldorff taking a senior HHS role.
- •The piece highlights Twitter’s Community Notes as a crowdsourced fact-checking model, giving examples and noting Mark Zuckerberg adopted a similar approach.