WATCH: Microsoft CEO Implies Tech Will Be Used to Censor in Lead-up to Election

January 31st, 2024 1:43 PM

Leftist Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made clear in an interview on artificial intelligence (A.I.) that Microsoft will be fixated on fighting so-called disinformation in the 2024 election.

Nadella told NBC anchor Lester Holt on the Jan. 30 edition of NBC Nightly News that the tech industry was putting in a lot of work to build the technology to “identify the issues around disinformation and misinformation.” Holt had put a question to Nadella on how he planned to deal with the “first A.I. election,” asking Nadella if he was nervous about “how A.I. Can help and how it may be weaponized?"

The CEO of the censor-happy company gave a concerning answer. “This is not the first election where we dealt with disinformation or propaganda campaigns by adversaries and election interference,” said Nadella, before elaborating on techniques his company employs. “We're doing all the work across the tech industry around watermarking, detecting deep fakes and content IDs. There is going to be enough and more technology quite frankly in order to be able to identify the issues around disinformation and misinformation.”

 

 

MRC Free Speech America Director Michael Morris, however, called out Nadella for his comments, given infamously leftist Microsoft’s terrible track record on free speech. Morris said, “The left often hides behind the veneer of providing for public safety when in actuality they intend to step on Americans’ freedoms. Suggesting that technology will be utilized to protect against election interference, Nadella appears to use the in-vogue words ‘mis-’ and ‘disinformation’ here as a dog whistle of sorts to do precisely that in calling for what will likely ultimately amount to more censorship.”

Microsoft has a history of pushing censorship. In fact, the head of Microsoft’s Xbox division Phil Spencer once proclaimed that “Xbox Live is not a free speech platform,” before whining that users were more free to act on social media platforms. Additionally, a then-Microsoft product program manager Dare Obasanjo, once publicly clamored in 2019 for Facebook to remove 80 percent of Fox News’s and The Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro’s videos from the platform. 

Microsoft-owned social networking site LinkedIn locked 2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy out of his account. In Vivek’s case, as well as a number of others, LinkedIn censored free speech to protect environmentalist talking points on “climate change.”   

As for A.I., Microsoft has invested $10 billion into OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT. If ChatGPT’s track record of left-wing bias is any indication of the path Microsoft will take the technology in 2024, Americans should be concerned. Eric Spitznagel of The New York Post documented repeated instances of ChatGPT demonstrating a leftist bias and refusing to provide requested responses to non-politically correct prompts. 

Conservatives are under attack! Contact your representatives and demand government agencies and Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable