Freedom of speech is an ideal that our country was founded on, an ideal that was not meant to have any ifs, ands, or buts. The First Amendment grants us the right to the freedom of religion and expression, something that is often easily infringed upon considering recent events that bar people from speaking what is truly on their minds. With the 2016 presidential election only months away, and primaries even closer, the candidates take center stage and prompt national attention whenever they discuss an idea as big as building a wall to separate countries or as small as who their favorite celebrity is. But one thing stands out. The Republican candidates are constantly criticized for their beliefs, especially on social media, while Democratic ones are praised and seen as saints, even for their far left-winged policies. But why? Don’t conservatives have the same rights as liberals to voice their opinions? What repercussions does this have on millennials and those in the conservative minority? Why is blatant infringement of the first amendment allowed for some, but not for others?

Media powerhouses like Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter often have liberal views, and don’t hold back when it comes to expressing them; often times at the cost of another person’s right to free speech. Just last month, Facebook censored Autumn Bennett’s page criticizing gender-neutral bathrooms, “Keep Locker Rooms Safe”, and on March 18, decided to shut down her page completely. Bennett received hundreds of hate comments each day before Facebook shut the page down, with some trans-activists even forming their own pages in response mocking her views. Bennett acknowledged how Facebook “is a private company and can choose to block or remove whomever it wants, but this really, really takes the take.” People constantly use social media as a platform to express their opinions and beliefs. Of course, had Bennett’s posts posed any imminent harm to a certain individual, they would have violated Facebook’s safety guidelines. But she did nothing close to that. Bennett simply posted pictures and articles criticizing gender-neutral bathrooms, never violently targeting a specific individual. Those violations laid in the comments section, where thousands of liberals wrote violent responses ranging from “How could you say this?” to “Kill yourself. Your opinion is useless.” Clearly, Facebook blocked the wrong side for all the wrong reasons and didn’t think twice about what their actions meant. A page praising gender neutral bathrooms could be offensive to a woman like Bennett, yet Facebook would never shut it down because its meaning aligns with its liberal views. Not only does this diminish any rights the page creator has, it also sets the precedent that anything you don’t agree with can be taken as offensive. Of course you can argue against an opinion that differs from your own, but to completely remove the other side’s right to voicing their own argument is taking away a freedom that you would want to have for yourself.

When the Supreme Court ruled to legalize gay marriage nationwide last year, Snapchat quickly responded by creating a rainbow filter, a nod to the flag symbolizing gay pride. Twitter followed suit, creating a small rainbow hear that appeared beside the hashtag #lovewins whenever somebody tweeted about the ruling. These actions clearly indicate the social media’s liberal-leaning, as well as parallel today’s society’s social views. In a recent study, the Pew Research Center found that millennials lean the most left of any generation, with over 50% identifying as Democrat or liberal and only 34% identifying as Republican or conservative. According to another Pew Research study, 88% of this same age group also gets their news from Facebook and other forms of social media. As more millennials join liberal social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to get their main source of news, are they being conditioned into having a certain political belief? A Pew Research Center study from 2011 found that 77% of people surveyed believed that the press clearly favors one political side. Of course bias is a trend nobody can get away from. Every news reporter has their opinions, and whether they are conscious of it or not, reflect those views in their news reports. But the real problem is when social media or even media in general makes one side or person feel like they have are mistaken in their views. People can write articles and post images praising their opinion and expect it to be protected by their right to free speech; yet ironically, those same people are often the ones who make those who support the other side feel like their opinion is wrong and should not be supported by anyone in the first place. And when the majority of social media lean liberal today, this often means that this effect occurs on a daily basis, in particular, to conservatives. Since conservatives already make up the minority among millennials in the US, with the only main news outlet catering to them being Fox, their opinions are often swept under the rug and disregarded as false because of the sheer numbers associated with the majority. This is a problem that needs to be fixed, because current events cannot be broadcast as so one-sided. There are two sides to every argument, so without addressing the other side, this borders on liberal propaganda.

But this liberal bias doesn’t just plague media outlets, it has even spread to educational facilities and the workplace, places that should be party-blind. A recent study conducted by Dutch psychologists Yoel Inbar and Joris Lammers found that “in decisions ranging from paper reviews to hiring, many social and personality [professors] admit that they would discriminate against openly conservative colleagues.” The study also found that the more liberal a professor was, the more willing they were to discriminate against the conservative and, paradoxically, the higher the assumption that conservatives do not face a hostile climate in universities. In another study from 2007, sociologists Neil Gross and Solon Simmons found that 80 percent of psychology professors at universities openly identify as Democrats. Other studies reveal that 5 percent to 7 percent of faculty openly identify as Republicans. This obvious disparity is nothing short of embarrassing for universities that claim they offer a well-rounded curriculum. In their study, Inbar and Lammers also found a common trend that the conservatives they surveyed feared that revealing their political identity would lead to negative consequences both in their current workplace and in future ones. This fear of retaliation from liberals is not only true in the workplace; it continues into the classroom, on social media, and even daily life. Anyone could walk down the halls of my school with a Bernie 2016 shirt and be praised for it; yet as soon as someone supports Ted Cruz, liberals go ballistic, even though the conservative has just as much right to wear what they want as the liberal does. This liberal double standard of who free speech applies to exemplifies itself perfectly in education and the media.

Of course there is a fine line between what is protected under free speech and what isn’t. But simply posting a conservative-minded picture or essay isn’t. The real hate comes from those who believe that people who don’t agree with them are not entitled to the same freedoms they are. But both conservatives and liberals can improve on this. I can improve on it. You can improve on it. Everyone can improve on it. No good changes ever came about from the minority staying silent. Conservatives have just as much of a right to say what they want as liberals, even though some don’t like to think that (on both sides). Free speech should be free for everybody, not just those that you agree with. If you stand by it for your views, you stand by it for everyone.