Censorship of conservatives on social media is a very real and very serious issue. We know first hand what Facebook censorship looks like…our pro-Trump 100 Percent FED UP Facebook page with almost 2 million followers was unpublished by Facebook only 10 days before the 2016 election. Prior to the election, we were receiving over 32 million views per week on our Facebook page by mostly conservatives who were looking for real news about Donald Trump and his campaign, without the liberal bias (hate). When Breitbart News asked Facebook why our page was unpublished without notice, they simply replied that it was a “mistake”, and within 24 hours, our 100 Percent FED UP Facebook page was republished.
Following the stunning election of Donald J. Trump in 2016, conservative pages on Facebook saw a dramatic drop in traffic. Immediately following President Trump’s inauguration, the traffic on our 100 Percent FED UP took a huge nosedive. Over the next year, we watched our Facebook traffic take a 88% hit in traffic. Top executives and underlings at Google, Facebook, and Twitter were shaken to the core. Many of them have been caught on video having meltdowns over the election or discussing how they will combat Trump by using their platform. Democrats blamed Hillary’s loss on Facebook, citing Russian interference on social media, of course, they were referring to the measly $100,000 in Russian ads that Facebook allowed to run on their platform. The Facebook ads that Democrats asserted affected the outcome of the election, were proven to be directed at dividing citizens of the United States and were not intended to support or criticize Clinton or Trump. In 2016, Facebook reportedly collected over $26 billion in ad revenue.
And now, for the most underreported story of the decade…
Last year, during a Personal Democracy Forum in New York City, Barack Obama’s digital director, Carol Davidsen dropped a stunning admission about how Mark Zuckerberg gave the data for the ENTIRE SOCIAL NETWORK of the U.S. to the Democrat Party.
During the forum, Davidsen shockingly, admitted that Facebook gave the Democrat Party the ability to ingest the entire social network of the U.S. that’s on Facebook, “which is most people”. Davidsen told the audience, “Where this gets complicated is that freaked Facebook out, right? So they shut off the feature. Well, the Republicans never built an app to do that. So, the data’s out there. You can’t take it back, right? So the Democrats have this information. So, when they look at a voter file, and someone comes to them, they can immediately be like, ‘Oh, here are all of the other people that they know, and here are the people that they can help us persuade because they’re really good friends with this person.’ The Republicans do not have this information, and will not get that information.”
Davidsen confessed, ” I’m a Democrat, so you know, maybe I could argue that maybe that’s a good thing. But really, it’s not in the overall process, right? So, that wasn’t thought all the way through, and now there’s a disadvantage of information, that seems unfair. But I’m not Facebook, so these are the realities.”
Davidsen’s speech was asked by the organizers to leave the stage early. She appears to be stunned after she got the “hook” from the leftist group, and later tweeted: I start talking about Facebook at around minute 18, and had more to say, before getting dragged off stage because i didn’t understand the clock in the back of the room. Ha
Over the past year, executives from Facebook and Twitter have appeared before Congress to discuss the censorship of conservative voices on their platforms. They’ve all made promises to look into censorship practices, yet the censorship of conservatives by all 3 tech giants continues.
Finally, members of Congress appear to be waking up to the very real and serious consequences of allowing the top disseminators of news in the world to silence conservative voices, and that includes Google. Last week, a video was released by Breitbart News revealing top Google executives openly discussing their panic and frustration after Hillary lost the 2016 presidential election. President Trump’s 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted about the video and demanded that Congress hold hearings to investigate:
@google needs to explain why this isn’t a threat to the Republic. Watch the video. Google believes they can shape your search results and videos to make you “have their values”. Open borders. Socialism. Medicare 4 all. Congressional hearings! Investigatehttps://twitter.com/parscale/status/1039980750500704261
Today, GOP Representatives Steve Scalise and Cathy McMorris Rodgers put Facebook, Twitter, and Google on notice in a USA Today op-ed:
Add Google to the list of tech companies who owe the American people answers. A leaked video of Google executives surfaced recently that depicts them lamenting the 2016 election outcome. Google co-founder Sergey Brin told employees that he found the election “deeply offensive.” It is clear that left-leaning political bias exists among senior employees at Google. The question remains: How do their personal biases affect their products and choices?
The House Energy and Commerce Committee held hearings with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg this year to have a transparent discussion about fair and free platforms for the battle of ideas. As members of the committee, we asked questions that Americans are concerned about regarding content bias, harassment, hate speech allegations and personal data privacy.
Dorsey was asked why Twitter quickly banned Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s Senatorial campaign announcement due to its pro-life message because it was deemed by the company as an “inflammatory statement that was likely to cause a strong negative reaction.” Dorsey apologized and admitted that it was a mistake that his company later corrected.
Similarly, after seeing a number of examples of content discrimination, we asked Zuckerberg for answers on how Facebook will ensure that content is judged objectively, without bias based on religious or political ideology. The American people deserve to know the process and bias involved in algorithms and human content managers who screen content if these tech giants will be able to restore confidence that they are not discriminating against people based on their political views. We look forward to the outcome of Facebook’s audit and appreciate their ongoing commitment to seriously looking at these issues.
Congress would like to give the tech giants the opportunity to prove they can be transparent and that they are not censoring conservatives before they take legislative action, warning that it would be “dangerous” for Congress to get involved in what speech is acceptable on these platforms”.
Silicon Valley should make the first move on reform
However, we must be very careful to not create laws and regulations that overstep government’s role and ultimately cause more problems than they solve. Regulation would likely enshrine the current internet ecosystem and result in stifling future competition to current tech giants.
It is also dangerous for Congress to get involved in deciding what speech is acceptable on these platforms. Defining political speech or hate speech a certain way in law can have unintended consequences that may permanently damage a fair and free marketplace of ideas.
Isn’t it more dangerous for the top disseminators of news in the world to punish anyone who doesn’t hold their far-left views, by prioritizing and pushing their own leftist agenda on unsuspecting users?
