Free Speech

The British government may be free from Europe thanks to Brexit, but it appears to be sliding into authoritarianism as it drafts regulations to crack down on freedom of speech. Ofcom, the United Kingdom’s media watchdog, according to Forbes’ Feb. 12 coverage, “is to be given the power to regulate social media companies, holding them to account for harmful content.” The UK has already reportedly…

A wealthy billionaire tech CEO has endorsed the economically irresponsible concept of a universal basic income. Unfortunately for him, its advocate Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang has dropped out of the race. Twitter head Jack Dorsey tweeted after the news of Yang’s departure broke, “Really sad Andrew is dropping out.” The tech giant, who is worth $5 billion according to Forbes,…

Far-left media outlet The Young Turks launched a new project to train a new generation of liberals to dominate local media -- all funded by Big Tech giant YouTube and its owner, Google. Axios announced that the Cenk Uygur-founded progressive digital publisher, The Young Turks, is now receiving funding in “the mid-six figures range” from Google-owned YouTube to launch “TYT Academy.” TYT Academy,…

Amazon has decided to quietly crack down on books it deems offensive. But the company’s enforcement of standards seems lopsided at best. The New York Times reported that third-party booksellers on Amazon have been forbidden from selling copies of books written by David Duke, a former leader of the KKK, and George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party.

Twitter bans accounts for transphobia and won’t allow pro-life organizations to run ads on its platform. But a cartoon encouraging terrorism is apparently allowed to spread.

When actor/comedian Sacha Baron Cohen blasted Facebook, world famous industrialist Elon Musk was quick to support him. Cohen, known for his prankster “Borat” role, slammed Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg in a Feb. 5 tweet. He asked, “Why do we let 1 man control the information seen by 2.5 billion people? Facebook needs to be regulated by governments, not ruled by an emperor!” Musk, known…

President Donald Trump tweeted an edited video that showed Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi repeatedly tearing up the State of the Union speech, with other clips of the president’s successes pieced in the video. Democrats were outraged. “The latest fake video of Speaker Pelosi is deliberately designed to mislead and lie to the American people,” said Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, Drew Hammill.

Oh how the times have changed. One of the most popular liberal tech writers has lamented that Republican social media strategy in the Trump era has changed the game. Recode co-founder and New York Times contributor Kara Swisher wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times headlined “Sorry, Republicans Rule the Internet.” Her accompanying tweet to the Feb 4 article lamented that “GOP tech…

The billionaire candidate who came out of nowhere has apparently decided that paying young social media stars to promote him is the key to success.The Daily Beast alleged that former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg is using Tribe, a talent pool of young “micro-influencers” described as social media stars with between “1,000 to 100,000 followers,” seemingly to make his presidential run look…

Do YouTube’s hate speech policies try to protect even demonic entities? A video produced by The Catholic Talk Show entitled, “7 Secrets Catholic Exorcists Want You to Know,” was deleted by YouTube for violating hate speech rules. A video produced by The Catholic Talk Show entitled, “7 Secrets Catholic Exorcists Want You to Know,” was deleted by YouTube for violating hate speech rules. 

President Donald Trump’s presence on Twitter receives almost countless mentions in the media. Imagine what that’s done to Twitter’s notoriety. The social media platform Twitter has gone up in market value significantly since Trump’s election in 2016, according to Forbes.

Will Facebook’s new oversight board be the platform to ensure free speech or a Big Tech kangaroo court? The site’s in-house newsroom posted a developer blog on Jan. 28 which announced the platform’s upcoming oversight board. While its actual members will be chosen and announced “[i]n the coming months,” Facebook staff did reveal that “the first Director of Oversight Board Administration will be…

Republicans and Democrats do not tend to agree on a much these days, but both sides of the aisle have come together to agree on at least one thing -- both distrust Big Tech.

Meme creators and free speech advocates feel they will be the first casualty of the latest war on “manipulated content” by Big Tech. Twitter Safety announced via tweet on Jan 4 a new rule that forbids “manipulated media,” possibly including humorous video edits or memes. Such content may now either be labeled or removed from the platform entirely.