It's also in the context of Trump saying he'll come for the other late night shows next and government threats against universities, corporations and private individuals based on their speech or protests.

But nah let's handwave it all, and "whatabout" to the imaginary time when supposedly something anywhere comparable happened to conservative voices.

Social media censorship to suppress views that are not approved by the federal government, — Samlw

I would question: is this happening? What I see on X is a pretty good mix of left and right. I see more right wing stuff because, being a right wing guy, I have gone out of my way more to click "follow" on other right wing accounts. But left wing accounts do show up and I get a feeling that I am going to be seeing what their take is on things which is good because I don't want a right wing media bubble to distort my perception of the news. (and really wish progressives would learn to avoid a mirror identical left wing media bubble)

What I'm not seeing is a lot of bans or topics that are totally banned from discussion. X does tend to "Community Note" left wing posts a lot more because, let's face it, X is a right wing site now. But critically, it doesn't ban opposing views which I think makes a huge difference. While not perfect, I think X really has made things better, re-opening the marketplace of ideas like we used to have before 2014.

The other social media sites have in 2025 started to comply with the GOP's demand that they open things up somewhat but of course not as much as X. They do all remain left wing sites fundamentally. But what X has changed for the whole American media landscape is that now news stories right wingers care about can no longer be suppressed. Leftists get to put their own spin on them like they always did for most of my life, which is fair enough, but they can't outright suppress & delete major stories anymore. They at least have to explain unfavorable stories now, which is actually good for them to keep them honest, which I think I would still believe even if I agreed with them. You can't fly an airplane with two left wings!

Lawsuits against opposing news outlets, — Samlw

They absolutely did libel the guy. There are actually several of these suits and they range in how much merit they have, but saying there's zero merit to all of them seems dishonest.

Deportation of activists due to their speech — Samlw

Is it really due to speech or is it due to specific, already illegal actions undertaken as political tactics? My undrestanding is that student activists who were guests of the United States but who physically interfered with university access for American students because of political activism were the ones being deported. You can say whatever you want but if you seal off the library so American students can't study to pass their exams, then deportation is getting off lightly IMO.

Pressure on Educational institutes to avoid certain topics / remove books, — Samlw

This has happened and its been a bit clumsy. Essentially, for many decades, it has been normal for the Left to be able to use the public, taxpayer-funded universities as seminaries for their political propaganda and activism. Entire displines have been constructed which essentially exist for the sole purpose of replacing scholarship with activism. How do deal with this is a huge problem for the Right. Any attempt to address it is going to be clumsy and potentially misdirected in some cases and I have a hard time even concieving of how to construct a policy which could address the intended problem while avoiding that side effect. Replacing scholarship with exclusively left wing activism as a conceptual move has become so normalized and pervasive in academia for so long -- and has been so interlinked with legitimate scholarship -- that it's difficult to even start curbing it or reducing it without at least some legitimate scholarship getting damaged in the process because of how deeply embedded in academic institutions this practice is. It's like separating conjoined twins. And of course, making this difficult to oppose was the whole intent of the tactic of the activist-scholar from the beginning.

I do believe very firmly that something has to be done to reign in crazy activism having displaced legitimate scholarship in academia but at the same time, recognize that any attempt to deal with this problem is likely to cause some collateral damage. So I'd be looking at this from a perspective of finding ways to address the problem while minimizing that collateral damage.