Reads of the Week: Political Ads, Uighur Genocide, and Hope for the Politically Homeless

Each week, we feature opinion pieces from the alumni and current participants of AF’s Writing Fellows Program. A few highlights from the past week are below. Do you dream of having bylines like these? Learn more about how the Writing Fellows Program can help boost your writing career!

Inauguration Has Happened, Google And Facebook Should End The Ban On Political Advertisements by Eric Peterson (Fall 2014) in techdirt
In light of the events at the Capitol, social media and other online companies have been reevaluating who they let speak on their platforms. The ban of President Trump from Twitter, Facebook, and various other platforms has sparked fierce debate over moderation and free speech. But Google’s recently reinstituted ban on political advertisements until at least inauguration day and the continued ban from Facebook are silencing voices that need to be heard the most – those speaking about state and local political issues.

Before last November’s election, both Google and Facebook restricted the ability of political advertisers to submit and run new ads. This policy was implemented to prevent situations like those in 2016, when Russian agents were able to purchase $100,000 in Facebook ads related to that year’s presidential election. Although these ads did nothing to affect the outcome of the election, they gave rise to the spurious narrative that Russia “hacked” the election…

Biden must follow through on the State Department’s China genocide declaration by Arielle Del Turco (Summer 2020) in the Washington Examiner
On his last full day in office, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity through its campaign of repression against Uighur Muslims. Pompeo’s declaration is the strongest rebuke from any government of China’s atrocities in Xinjiang and one that is sure to affect how the incoming Biden administration interacts with China.

Noting that the crimes are continuing, Pompeo specified that Beijing is responsible for the arbitrary imprisonment of more than a million people, forced sterilization, torture, forced labor, and restrictions on freedoms of religion, expression, and movement…

I already was a politically homeless conservative. Then came the ‘Trump supernova’ by Christian Sagers (Summer 2020) in the Deseret News
Only a year and a half before President Donald Trump was elected, I was in the Capitol interning for Sen. Mike Lee and steeping in Washington Republicanism — taking notes at interfaith forums, slipping over to the Heritage Foundation for Sen. Marco Rubio’s speech and a free lunch, and trying to defend an unregulated internet to my girlfriend-now-wife.

Now after four years of Trump’s presidency, I’m politically homeless…