Tell your censorship story
What was taken from you during COVID because of what you questioned or what you had to say – an account, a livelihood, an audience, a payment processor, a business relationship, a professional reputation?
Lawmakers hear about hundreds of bills and issues every day, and major issues compete for their attention. Real stories from real constituents can cut through that noise. They can help lawmakers understand why this issue matters, build a strong congressional record, and give them a reason to investigate what happened and support legislation to make sure it does not happen again.
Please share your story of censorship during COVID.
Your personal story can give lawmakers something facts and statistics alone cannot: a clear picture of what censorship actually did to real people. A deleted post may sound small until a lawmaker hears that it cost someone an audience they spent years building. An account suspension means more when it affected a person’s business, income, reputation, or ability to communicate with their community. Stories bring the human cost into the room. They make the issue harder to dismiss, easier to understand, and more difficult to forget.
Those stories also give lawmakers the firepower they need to act. They can be used to show patterns, identify questions that need answers, support requests for documents, justify investigations, build the case for congressional hearings, and create a public record that future lawmakers, courts, journalists, and the American people can look back on. Members of Congress need evidence from the people they represent. When enough Americans tell their stories, lawmakers have more than a policy concern—they have constituents asking them to find out what happened and make sure it never happens again.
By submitting your story, you understand and agree that the information you provide may be shared publicly and may be used by SHF and the Restore the First Coalition in advocacy materials, social media, congressional outreach, reports, testimony, hearings, investigations, or other efforts to document censorship and protect First Amendment rights.
Your story joins the Restore the First Coalition’s archive, becomes part of the public record, and helps document that this was not a story about twelve targeted people. It was a story about millions.