Fox News host Tucker Carlson accused an increasing number of media outlets Tuesday of not “challenging” but “colluding” with authoritarian powers that want to censor what people watch and read during the coronavirus crisis.

Social media giants like Facebook, Google and YouTube are routinely removing information and videos that they disagree with and consider “harmful misinformation,” a description that “anyone who has watched authoritarian regimes” is familiar with, Carlson said on the opening segment of “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

“‘Harmful misinformation’ … It’s now how [Facebook founder] Mark Zuckerberg describes political opinions he doesn’t like … Suddenly our media are not concerned about freedom of speech,” Carlson stated.

“Our media are no longer challenging power, they are colluding with power and that may be why there has been so little critical coverage of the massive expansion of our surveillance state currently in progress,” he said, noting that tech companies now routinely watch the actions of American citizens via their cell phones and surveillance drones. “Needless to say our politicians approve of this.” (RELATED: ‘We Should Never Let Someone Like That Run This Country’: Tucker Carlson Says Dr. Fauci’s Advice Could Lead To ‘National Suicide’)

Carlson castigated the media’s fawning relationship with the World Health Organization (WHO), a United Nations organization that is currently led by an alleged apologist for communist China.

“Like everyone else involved in global pandemic policy, the WHO has often been wrong in its recommendations … In January, the WHO told us that the coronavirus could not be spread from person to person. In March they told us that face masks didn’t work. Those were lies and they were welcome on Google’s platforms,” the Fox News host said.

“This is not about science. Censorship never is about science; it’s about power,” Carlson insisted, noting that “just today, Facebook removed an events page for a political protest in Michigan,” adding that “Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who runs that state, was no doubt pleased to see it.”

Carlson has criticized Whitmer for the strict lockdown she implemented over her state, including a ban on the sale of garden hoses and vegetable seeds. (RELATED: ‘No Penalty For Authoritarianism’: Tucker Carlson Blasts ‘Mediocre Politician’ Gretchen Whitmer’s ‘Power’ Grabs)

He described an America dealing with COVID-19 as one where citizens are “locked in their homes, banned from going to church and placated with sedatives like weed and beer,” while opponents of the lockdown are “silenced.”

“Political demonstrations are illegal. Organizers are arrested and only opinions approved by leaders, many of them unelected, are allowed on information platforms,” the Daily Caller co-founder said.

“Does that sound familiar?’ Carlson asked. “It sounds a lot like China … As we fight this virus we are becoming far more like the country that spawned it. We are becoming more like China.”