“Now that they’ve become these very powerful networks of eyeballs. They’ve now switched and they are using that market power to force particular viewpoints.” —William Barr, U.S. Attorney General
It isn’t a conspiracy. Big tech is out to silence those voices it disagrees with on the political spectrum and is actively interfering with U.S. elections. For those conservatives who argue that social media platforms are private corporations that have the right to ban users they don’t agree with, you are wrong—and dangerously anesthetized.
In a bold and decisive move, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order Thursday, May 28, in an attempt to stop the political censorship big tech has actively been engaging in leading up to the 2020 presidential election.
The issue came to a head on May 26 when twitter slapped the President’s tweet with one of its “fact check” statements.
The twitter label reads:
Unfortunately for twitter, mail-in voter fraud is well documented and since slapping Trump with its warning label, twitter has since admitted they were in error.
As recent as the last few weeks, PJ Media, reported on rampant voter fraud in Oregon and how twitter suspended the accounts of those who blew the whistle on the fraud:
“Oregon voters have reported dozens — perhaps hundreds — of problems with their party affiliation on mail-in ballots for the primary election that occurred last week. Several groups, including the Oregon Republican Party, have collected reports for an investigation into the matter. Now, however, Twitter has suspended the account @MyPartyChanged after the Secretary of State’s office called these reports “misinformation.”
Trump said the increasing editorial actions by social media to control the content on their platforms endangered their liability shield under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as a neutral public platform.
Brad Pascale, Trump’s Campaign Manager, in a released statement said, “Social media has been allowed to operate unchecked for years while enjoying the protection of federal law. These Silicon Valley giants have set themselves up as the arbiters of truth, censoring or labeling posts they disagree with, but they have shown that they cannot be trusted to be honest and fair.
“In the most recent egregious act, Twitter targeted a Trump tweet, but still leaves alone posts from Joe Biden which are obvious lies, and outrageous propaganda claims from accounts linked to the Communist Chinese government.”
U.S. Attorney General Barr, who attended the signing at the Oval Office said, “These companies grew because they held themselves out as public forums,” Barr said. “Now that they’ve become these very powerful networks of eyeballs. They’ve now switched and they are using that market power to force particular viewpoints.”
Even twitter’s own Jack Dorsey has admitted in congressional testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in defense of his platform’s actions related to censorship that twitter is an equivalent to the modern-day town square, where free speech is protected.
Problem is, twitter and other behemoth platforms can’t be both town squares and publishers. They must choose.
In a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision, the Court opined on the tremendous importance of social media.
In a written opinion, Justice Kennedy stated, “While in the past there may have been difficulty in identifying the most important places (in a spatial sense) for the exchange of views, today the answer is clear. It is cyberspace—the ‘vast democratic forums of the Internet’ in general, and social media in particular.”
The high priests of big tech usually hatch fully incubated from white, privileged, two-parent households where it was always assumed that they would go to university. They have been groomed from childhood by high-achieving parents to become the next CEO or sit on the board of some “worthy” progressive cause. These kids passed the marshmallow test. They feel entitled in their own minds to rule the world.
But it isn’t just twitter that is actively working to censor the American people.
Google’s Jen Gennai, head of Responsible Innovation Global Affairs, was caught on camera in 2019 in one of James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas’ undercover stings.
Gennai was captured on video admitting that Google manipulates its search results and data and is actively working to stop the re-election of President Trump by manipulating machine learning algorithms.
Gennai said, “We all got screwed over in 2016, again it wasn’t just us, it was, the people got screwed over, the news media got screwed over, like, everybody got screwed over so we’re rapidly been like, happened there and how do we prevent it from happening again. We’re also training our algorithms, like, if 2016 happened again, would we have, would the outcome be different?”
The problem with Trump’s executive order is that it can be overturned with the election of the next president and doesn’t solve the unlawful and unconstitutional interference by big tech in censoring free speech or stopping domestic election interference. Rather, Congress must act to enact long-lasting regulation of an industry that has become Orwellian and restricts the free flow of information.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) announced he was working with other House Republicans to draft a bill to stop the censorship and strip big tech companies of their Section 230 immunity. He also announced yesterday that he would be filing a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission.
“I am currently working with my Republican colleagues on the Judiciary Committee to craft legislation to say that if you’re going to opine as to the truth or falsity of that which is put on your platform, for the sake of its viewers, you don’t get the protection of Section 230. You are not a platform. You are doing something else, you are editorializing,” said Gaetz.
The problem with stripping big tech of its power will be sorely tested in any proposed legislation because of the vast amount of PAC money big tech has showered on congressional representatives. And it goes without saying that as long as Democrats remain the House majority, it is unlikely they will pass any meaningful legislation to curb censorship and election meddling because they are the direct beneficiaries.