Source: AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File
Dear Mr. Brin: Fifty years ago this week, when I was a
21-year-old college senior, I was in the Soviet Union, sent by the government
of Israel to smuggle in Jewish religious items and smuggle out names of Jews
who wanted to escape the Soviet Union and could then be issued a formal
invitation to Israel.
I was chosen because I was a committed Jew and because I
knew Hebrew and Russian. I was no hero, but the trip did entail risk. The
Soviets did not appreciate people smuggling out names of Soviet citizens who sought
to emigrate, information the Israeli government and activist groups in America
used to advocate on their behalf.
My four weeks in the USSR were, of course, life-changing.
This young American, lucky beyond belief to have spent his entire life in the freest
country in the world, experienced what it was like to live in a totalitarian
police state.
People feared merely being seen speaking with a Westerner, lest
the KGB arrest and interrogate them. People arranged to meet me at a certain
tree in a certain park and only spoke to me while walking to avoid
eavesdroppers. I met with Jewish engineers, doctors and professors who could
find no work because they were known to the government to be
"otkazniki," or "refuseniks" -- Jews who had applied for
exit visas to leave the Soviet Union and been refused permission. I'm sure you
know of them from your parents.
I left the Soviet Union angry and grateful -- angry there
are people who have the audacity to tell other people what they could and could
not say, and grateful beyond measure to have been born in America, where no one
could tell anyone what they could say. From that day to this, I have never
taken freedom, especially freedom of speech, for granted.
Why I am writing to you about this?
Because, beyond my wildest dreams, two things are
happening in America.
One is that for the first time in America's history, free
speech is seriously threatened.
In 1977, when Nazis sought to march in Skokie, Illinois
-- those terrible human beings chose Skokie because it was home to many Jewish
Holocaust survivors -- virtually every liberal and conservative organization,
including Jewish organizations, defended the Nazis' right to march. Because in
America -- and only in America -- it was understood that even if the most
loathsome speech was not protected, all speech was at risk.
That has changed.
Today, decent people -- people who abhor Nazism and every
other form of evil, left or right; people like Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro and
Ayaan Hirsi Ali -- are shouted down, threatened, disinvited or never invited to
speak at America's universities.
The other thing that is happening is even more
frightening. The company that you co-founded, Google, the greatest conduit of
speech in world history, is also suppressing speech. I have asked myself over
and over: How could the company founded by a man whose parents fled the Soviet
Union do this?
It so boggles the mind that I have to hope you are simply
not fully aware of what your company is doing.
So, in a nutshell, let me tell you what Google has done
to one organization, Prager University (better known as PragerU). Every week,
PragerU releases a five-minute video on virtually every subject outside of STEM
(science, technology, engineering and math). Some of the finest minds in the
world have presented these videos -- including professors from Harvard,
Stanford and MIT; four Pulitzer Prize winners; three former prime ministers;
liberals; conservatives; Democrats; Republicans (including never-Trumpers);
gays; and, of course, many women and members of ethnic and racial minorities.
Yet YouTube, which Google owns, has placed hundreds of
our videos on its restricted list. In addition to the inherent smear of being
labeled "inappropriate for children," this means no family that
filters out pornography and graphic violence, no school and no library can see
those videos. Among those restricted videos is one during former Canadian Prime
Minister Stephen Harper defends Israel.
Had someone told me 50 years ago that a
company led by the son of Soviet Jewish refuseniks would suppress a video by a
world leader defending the Jewish state, I would have told them they were out
of their mind. That's one reason I can only assume, or at least hope, that you
are not fully aware of what your company is doing.
Or how about a video series I present on the Ten
Commandments? YouTube is suppressing a number of those, too. When Sen. Ted Cruz
asked a Google official why Google restricted one of my videos on the Ten
Commandments, the official responded (it's on YouTube) that it was because the
video "contains references to murder."
In fact, PragerU has repeatedly asked Google over the
past several years why any of our videos are on the restricted list, and we
have received either a runaround or silence. We have never received a
substantive explanation.
We have no desire to see government intervene in
private business to protect free speech. But your company has availed itself of
protections under law that shield it from liability for defamation, copyright
infringement, etc. Your company's arrogance is such that a vast number of
Americans -- liberals as well as conservatives -- are worried that the major
conduit of speech in the Free World doesn't care about free speech.
Mr. Brin, along with millions of other Americans, I
fought to bring your parents from a land with no freedom to the Land of the
Free. None of us has ever asked for anything in return. It was our honor to
work for liberty in general and for Soviet Jewry specifically.
What Americans most want from immigrants is that they
help keep America free. I never had any doubt that those leaving the Soviet
Union would fulfill that mission.
Until now.
Freedom of speech is the most fundamental of all
freedoms. It's what your parents yearned for and bequeathed to you. Please
don't help take it away from those who made it possible -- the people of
America.
Sincerely yours,
Dennis Prager
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated
radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in
April 2018, is "The Rational Bible," a commentary on the book of
Exodus. His film, "No Safe Spaces," comes to theaters fall 2019. He
is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
