Kerby Anderson
If you write or speak about controversial issues, it is likely you will be banned from social media. Big Tech employees accuse the offender of misinformation or disinformation, even when that may not be the case.
YouTube (owned by Alphabet/Google), Facebook and Instagram (both owned by Meta), Twitter (now called X), and other platforms have banned politicians, doctors, and scientists. This has given Big Tech the ability to censor speech and put them into a position of deciding what is true and what is false.
Carol Roth, in her new book, reminds us that these bans are often permanent, with no pathway to redemption. She contrasts that with people who break the law. After they have served their time in prison, they are released. But with social media, there rarely is a path to get back on a platform.
Some have been successful. Journalist Alex Berenson was critical of COVID responses and information. When he posted accurate information about vaccine clinical trials, he received an eleven-month “permanent ban”. It wasn’t permanent because he sued Twitter and finally received a statement from Twitter that acknowledged his tweets should not have led to his suspension.
Sometimes you are banned with no justification. Journalist Miles Cheong said he was permanently banned from PayPal without an explicit reason and told he could not withdraw the money in his account for months.
In the past, we didn’t allow the phone service to decide if you could make a phone call. Carol Roth points to the Communications Act of 1934 which guaranteed phone service for all potential customers. The legislation wasn’t necessary when other phone services were available, and it wasn’t a monopoly.
But isn’t Big Tech essentially a monopoly? That’s why Congress needs to address the issue of banning people from social media.

Kerby Anderson
As we enter this new year, we will be hearing more about the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The First Industrial Revolution occurred in the 18th century. The Second Industrial Revolution began in the 19th century with the development of oil, electricity, and steel. The Third Industrial Revolution has been the digital era of computers and the internet.
The World Economic Forum claims that the Fourth Industrial Revolution “represents a fundamental change in the way we live, work, and relate to one another. It is a new chapter in human development, enabled by extraordinary technology advances commensurate with those of the first, second, and third industrial revolutions.”
Glen Beck, in his book Dark Future, argues this revolution will change our world: “In the coming years, advancements in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, blockchain technologies, bioengineering, automation, the metaverse, and countless other areas will change the human race in unprecedented ways.”
This changing reality raises an important question, says Beck, “The question is not whether life is going to change; that unstoppable freight train has already left the station. The real question—the most important one of this century—is, Will the emerging technological revolution improve life and make mankind freer, or will it enslave, impoverish, or perhaps even destroy it?”
These social and technological changes are coming, and Christians need to be educated about these topics and apply biblical principles to analyze them. That is why over the last year I have been writing booklets on topics like the great reset, social media, digital surveillance, artificial intelligence, and genetic engineering. We need to think biblically about these topics, especially during this election year.