Op-ed views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.

If Silicon Valley hosted any election night watch parties in November, they probably ended early … and in panic. The stunning victory for Republicans in Virginia wasn’t just a wake-up call for Democrats who have embraced identity-driven woke politics. It was a shot across the bow to the Big Tech oligarchs who have institutionalized wokeism into their social media platforms to censor conservatives and crackdown on free speech.

In Virginia, Republican Glenn Youngkin openly campaigned on rejecting the Left’s extreme race and gender agenda from Virginia’s school system and pledged to put parents, not bureaucrats, back in control of their children’s education. The Left tried their usual tricks of cancellation and labeled Youngkin a white supremacist. They targeted concerned parents as “domestic terrorists.” They made secret lists of families that deserved to be harassed for their opposition to critical race theory. They even tried to cover up a horrific sexual assault in a campus bathroom to protect their radical gender identity agenda (then attacked the father of the victim when he dared to confront them). The voters saw right through it all. They rejected the Left’s intimidation tactics and woke politics and elected Youngkin as the next governor of Virginia.

Conservatives no doubt won a big victory in Virginia, and Democrats are on the defensive. Bullying and cancel culture isn’t a winner at the ballot box. It’s a sign the tide is turning. But are the Big Tech titans at platforms like Twitter and Facebook, who have weaponized woke politics to censor and ban conservatives from their platforms, even listening?

The intimidation tactics, cancel culture, and sheer madness that the Left unleashed towards parents in Loudoun County is just a taste of what the Left is doing to people online. President Trump’s banishment from virtually all social media platforms is the most obvious example, but it’s happening to millions of others who don’t have the ability to fight back. Users expressing conservative beliefs are routinely suspended, banned, and harassed. Platforms are selectively censoring certain news articles or viewpoints that they deem offensive from users’ feeds. Activists who promote opinions that don’t align with the Left-wing tastes of the Big Tech elites are demonetized or permanently kicked off.

What happened in Virginia is happening on a terrifying scale online, where it’s far easier for anti-free speech activists to avoid accountability. Big Tech elites aren’t elected by the people. They are free to enforce their own vague policies about “harassment” and “offensive material” that are seemingly only applied to conservatives.

With the Omicron variant of the coronavirus now prompting renewed lockdowns and ramped-up government mandates around the world, social media will once again be a key link to the outside world for hundreds of millions of people. When this occurs, the freedom of expression rises to even greater importance.

But free speech remains under assault online, and there’s no clear legal avenue to fight back. But, just like in Virginia, a backlash is brewing. There is a thirst among Americans across the political spectrum for a platform where you can’t be canceled for expressing your political opinions. That’s why we launched GETTR.

In existence since July 4^th, GETTR already has attracted nearly 3 million users, notching its first one million in less than three days, making it the fastest growing social media platform in history. We’ve built a place where competing ideas can flow freely, and the response from users has been swift and strong.

GETTR isn’t just a social media platform – it’s an idea. We’re fighting for the simple concept that every American, regardless of their political persuasion, has a right to free speech. We believe that our country is stronger when it has forums that allow for spirited debate, the exchange of ideas, and freedom of expression, not censorship, bullying, and cancellation.

Glenn Youngkin’s election was the result of a silent majority of voters rising up and saying enough is enough. The same resistance is brewing online, and GETTR is leading the way. We won’t let free speech in America go down without a fight.

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Jason Miller

Jason Miller was a senior advisor to President Donald J. Trump during both the 2016 and 2020 campaigns and is the Chief Executive Officer of the social media platform GETTR

Latest posts by Jason Miller (see all)

• Jason Miller: Recent elections prove voters reject ‘wokeism’ - December 13, 2021
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