The streaming platform Twitch has released its new “misinformation” guidelines in its terms of service and wouldn’t you know it? It all seems to be things the left is adamant that we don’t argue with them about.

In their updated guidelines is a section called “harmful misinformation actors” where it details that you can no longer question both the COVID-19 vaccines or any conclusions reached by the World Health Organization, nor can you question election outcomes:

Misinformation that targets protected groups, which is already prohibited under our Hateful Conduct & Harassment Policy

Harmful health misinformation and wide-spread conspiracy theories related to dangerous treatments, COVID-19, and COVID-19 vaccine misinformation

• Discussions of treatments that are known to be harmful without noting the dangers of such treatments
• For COVID-19—and any other WHO-declared Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)—misinformation that causes imminent physical harm or is part of a broad conspiracy

Misinformation promoted by conspiracy networks tied to violence and/or promoting violence

Civic misinformation that undermines the integrity of a civic or political processPromotion of verifiably false claims related to the outcome of a fully vetted political process, including election rigging, ballot tampering, vote tallying, or election fraud*

In instances of public emergencies (e.g., wildfires, earthquakes, active shootings), we may also act on misinformation that may impact public safety

It should interest users that Twitch says before this list that “misinformation evolves rapidly” and the guidelines will be updated “as new trends and behaviors emerge.”

It doesn’t take a genius to see that these two topics that are suddenly being deemed as hotbeds of “misinformation” are topics that the left becomes very angry when you question. The 2020 election is not to be spoken about in untrustworthy terms but one has to wonder what would happen to a user that questioned the 2016 elections. Questioning elections was okay with the left then. If a Republican wins the 2024 election has to wonder if Twitch will still uphold this misinformation rule.

My guess is “no.”

That brings us to not questioning the COVID-19 data which has proven to be wildly inaccurate and oftentimes politically influenced. For instance, the CDC kept moving the goalposts on what is to be considered “fully vaccinated” as boosters came out after the people were told that the vaccine was all you needed to be considered safe from the Coronavirus. This ended up being absolute nonsense and people began rejecting the boosters outright. Eventually, the booster issue was dropped as the Omnicron virus that was supposed to kill us all hardly did society at large any harm, and attempting to force the vaccine on the populace became more trouble than it was worth.

Moreover, we heard endlessly how masks were necessary to stop the spread of COVID-19 despite it being absolutely clear that they weren’t working. Only recently did the left begin to admit that masks were mere facial decoration and many blue-state leaders began pulling back on mask requirements when it became a political liability.

In a recent roundtable discussion hosted by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, many medical experts gathered together and discussed in-depth the fact that much of the consensus reached by the medical bureaucrats were entirely wrong and that their solutions did more harm than good.

Why should these medical experts and their opinions and conclusions they’ve reached based on data be rejected and punished while clearly faulty information released by political organizations is allowed to be the only voice in the room?

Twitch has deemed this kind of conversation taboo and ban-worthy. Why? Because the leftists who run the platform have deemed it so and, as leftists will, their go-to is to stop conversation wholesale in order to enforce a narrative. Free speech and open conversation only invite trouble for their position.

If you have to shut down conversation in order to protect your narrative then maybe your narrative isn’t very good.

Moreover, if the idea of “misinformation” changes rapidly then perhaps the concept of misinformation is wholly flawed. As the debate around COVID-19 proved, what is misinformation today may be fact tomorrow. The act of calling something misinformation may, in itself, turn out to be misinformation and now you’ve put the idea in people’s heads that a fact is false.

As I’ve discussed during RedState LIVE!, this is because “misinformation” doesn’t actually mean false or misleading info, it really means debate, points, facts, or conversation that is inconvenient to the left.