In the aftermath of a yearlong tornado, Americans were dropped into the Land of Oz. Life as we know it no longer exists. Our new surroundings are strange, and things are not as they seem. Everything is merely an illusion.

We’ve been following a yellow brick road of information and advice to help us navigate a maze of COVID-19 terrors, personal disappointments and political chaos. As we struggled through unfamiliar territory, three wizards worked behind a curtain of secrecy to change our perception of reality – the heartless Jack Dorsey, brainless Mark Zuckerberg and cowardly Sundar Pichai.

These great and powerful wizards, from the Emerald City of Silicon Valley, led us into the magical land of cyberspace. They put the world at our fingertips and gave us access to anything our hearts desired. Now, our every whim is only a click away. While this new, illusory world seems wonderfully bright, it is dangerously deceptive.

Last month, the Senate Judiciary Committee summoned the three to appear before their committee to answer questions about violations of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Conservatives suspect the three are guilty of censoring content and infringing on First Amendment rights. However, as information platforms, they claim exemption from liability. Many senators, thinking Big Tech has crossed the line of neutrality, called the CEO’s to appear for questioning. Dorsey and Zuckerberg attended, but the cowardly Pichai failed to appear.

Twitter, owned by the heartless Dorsey, regularly blocks conservative users and tweets. During the last campaign, Twitter blocked Republican candidates, suspended the White House press secretary and restricted the president’s official campaign account. Conservative users on Twitter often lose thousands of followers overnight, and/or discover their accounts have been shadow-banned. The Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group, reports 99 percent of the tweets deleted by Twitter in 2020 contained conservative content.

Zuckerberg’s Facebook employs independent fact checkers, based in India and China, to block content considered “False,” “Misleading,” or “Going against Community Standards.” Checkers can censor anything they want, without explanation, and with no recourse for appeal. According to the MRC, 92.8 percent of posts removed by Facebook in 2020 were conservative in nature. During the campaign, The Washington Times reported Facebook censored Trump campaign ads 65 times; Biden zero times.

Google, headed by Pichai, also manipulates information. For example, psychologist Robert Epstein, Ph.D. used a team of technology experts to monitor election interference. Among other irregularities, they found that Google sent vote reminders to all liberal users, but no conservative users, for three days in October. When confronted by two GOP Senators, Google began sending vote reminders to conservative users as well.

In the recent hearings, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) brought to light the existence of programs called “Tasks” and “Centra.” According to a whistleblower, Google employees routinely discuss censorship topics with Twitter and Facebook, including phrases, individuals, hashtags and websites to ban across their platforms. When asked about Tasks and Centra, the brainless Zuckerberg denied any knowledge of their existence, even though he is the CEO of the largest social media platform in the world.

Tasks enables Facebook and Twitter to coordinate censorship efforts with Pichai’s Google and syncopates in the media to orchestrate a news blackout of any information that goes contrary to their far-left political agenda. The most egregious example happened when Twitter suspended The New York Post’s account for weeks, demanding it take down a breaking news story of Hunter Biden’s emails and possible illegal activity of his father, then-candidate Joe Biden. Dorsey later admitted they’d made a mistake, but for the most part this bombshell remained unreported until after the election. The MRC now reports 17 percent of voters saying they would not have voted for Biden if they’d had this information.

The Wicked Witch used her crystal ball to follow Dorothy through Oz. Twitter, Facebook and Google use Centra to track us as we browse, shop and interact online. As Sen. Hawley’s whistleblower explained, “It [Centra] tracks different profiles that [users] visits, their linked accounts, the pages they visit around the web that have Facebook buttons.” By using this behavioral data to monitor accounts, Centra can tell Big Tech many things about us, including our political leanings.

In this illusionary world we now find ourselves, the tech wizards control the flow of information while hiding behind a mysterious curtain. They must be exposed for who they really are – a self-appointed tribunal of ultra-wealthy technocrats who think they’re above the law. They’ve put our country in danger because we’re not safe living in an artificial bubble of censored information, lacking all the facts we need to make informed decisions.

Dorothy needed to get back to Kansas. America needs to get back to the place where information flows freely and matters of national importance can be openly and safely discussed in the public square.

Bonnie Ewoldt, of rural Milford, is a retired teacher, news junkie and freelance writer. Her opinion pieces have appeared online and in newspapers across Iowa and neighboring states. Visit her blog at http://www.bonniesblogbox.wordpress.com.