Free Speech

The app so compromised by the Chinese government that it can’t be used by members of the U.S. military has now gone viral amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Now it’s planning on expanding into TV. TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese firm directly overseen by the Chinese government, has grown exponentially during recent months. TikTok “has been downloaded more than 2 billion times globally…

House lawmakers sent a scorching letter to the Amazon CEO, threatening to use force if he does not come voluntarily. House lawmakers sent a letter last Friday demanding that Amazon CEO and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos answer for his company’s alleged monopolistic activities — such as using data from third-party merchants using Amazon to make competing products. The letter threatened that, “If…

Conservative commentator Candace Owens was suspended from Twitter for encouraging Americans to defy stay-at-home rules. Owens blasted Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Friday for her stringent stay-at-home policies enforced on her state. The fiery tweet reportedly read that: "Apparently @GovWhitmer believes she is a duly elected dictator of a socialist country. The people of Michigan need to…

Twitter’s rules against “misinformation” don’t apply to everyone. The platform didn’t stop a full-blown anti-American propaganda video from being released by the Chinese government. And this isn’t the first time Twitter allowed Chinese propaganda. The Chinese Embassy in France uploaded an absurd, lego-based propaganda video at 10:54 a.m. Apr 30. The Ambassade de Chine en France’s video “Once Upon…

Twitter does not seem to have a direct answer as to whether or not it has reduced visibility for President Donald Trump’s Twitter account. Twitter’s U.K. Head of Government, Public Policy and Philanthropy, Katy Minshall, was asked by MP Clive Efford if the company “often take[s] action against tweets from the president of the United States?” She seemed unable to answer the question in an April 30…

Even a global pandemic isn’t enough to make Americans want to surrender their privacy to Big Tech. Apple and Google had launched an unprecedented “contact tracing” project in mid-May that would notify users when they have entered the presence of a person with the coronavirus. This was launched in an effort “to protect people and get society back up and running,” according to an April 10…

YouTube’s fact-checking panels will now be launched in America after being tested in India. YouTube’s chief product officer Neal Mohan, was quoted in The Verge’s April 28 coverage explaining that “When users are searching on YouTube around a specific claim, we want to give an opportunity for those fact checks to show up right then and there, when our users are looking for information — especially…

A popular video featuring California emergency doctors Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi was taken down by YouTube for “violating YouTube’s terms of service.” Based on their own research, the hour-long conference asked, “Does this make sense? Are we following the science?”

While YouTube is relying on the hapless WHO to fight misinformation, the platform is clamping down on reports of potential treatments that are being developed. There has been some controversy about an ultraviolet light-based treatment for the COVID-19 virus. The “Healight,” by Aytu BioScience Inc., reportedly “uses ultraviolet light as an antimicrobial and is a promising potential treatment for…

Big Tech platforms have taken it upon themselves to police misinformation, but why are they glorifying the mistakes at the World Health Organization? YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki made a special appearance on Brian Stelter’s Reliable Sources podcast where she explained how YouTube has been fighting misinformation with what Big Tech considers to be more reputable sources. “We also talk about removing…

A Facebook fact-checking partner determined that President Donald Trump did not tell people to inject themselves with disinfectants to cure the coronavirus. Lead Stories, a fact-checking outlet run by former CNN employees, took a video from popular Facebook page March for Science and found it to be a “false accusation.”

Even our own local Big Tech overlords are wary of an app overseen by the insidious Chinese government. Reddit CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman blasted TikTok during a discussion panel at the “Social 2030” venture capital conference with other Big Tech experts, TechCrunch reported in late February. Huffman declared the app to be “fundamentally parasitic” and explained that he tells people…

Twitter allows manipulated media of President Donald Trump to remain on its platform. But memes of Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden are allegedly taken down if they are even mentioned. A meme, made to look like a fake Biden ad, showed the candidate smiling with a beam of light coming from his chest. A statement that says, “His brain? No. His heart,” sits to the…