Free Speech

Apps collect data about their users. What happens when a foreign government owns that data? The U.S. military did not want to find out. According to an NBC News report, the Defense Information Systems Agency advised employees to avoid using the app, TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese regulated company ByteDance.

One of the top YouTube creators, PewDiePie, warned that the site is under threat — from the very people who run it. PewDiePie addressed questions from his fans in a Dec 28 video and questioned the future of the entire platform and its relationship with its creators. “It’s not impossible but it doesn’t seem that likely that YouTube is just gonna be the top website forever” he mused. He later that…

Hate crimes are tragic. Now they are typically followed by calls for government crackdowns on speech. In the wake of the attack on a Hanukkah celebration at a Rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York, weekday morning CNN Newsroom co-host Jim Sciuttointerviewed a local Jewish community leader named Steve Gold. When Sciutto asked what can be done to solve this going forward, Gold, the co-president of…

UK's government-funded news media giant BBC is considering measures to discourage its “top correspondents” from biased tweeting.

The photo sharing platform Instagram has launched the rise of many influencers ranging from aspiring models to artists, but now it is restricting what products these influencers can be paid to promote. “Across the Facebook company, we are updating our policies to include clearer rules for the paid promotion of certain goods and services such as vaping, tobacco, alcohol and diet supplements,”…

LGBTQ Privilege? YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said the company consults with the LBGTQ community to make sure they don’t feel they are being censored. Wouldn’t it be nice if conservatives had such a seemingly favored group? Wojcicki spoke to Eugene Lee Yang of “The Try Guys” on Dec. 16 regarding YouTube’s harassment policy update and apparent efforts to appease the LGBTQ creator community’s…

Some in Big Tech have made swipes at Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for his company’s free speech stance on political ads, and the hits keep on coming. The CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey unfollowed Mark Zuckerberg handle “@finkd” in a set of circumstances that were mysterious but may have been intended as a public display. “Dorsey followed a twitter account, @bigtechalert, which exists only to report…

It’s the future you probably didn’t ask for -- being nagged by Artificial Intelligence to stop being “offensive” and “bullying.” Instagram touted its new anti-bullying Artificial Intelligence program in its Dec. 16 blog about  the social media giant’s “long-term commitment to lead the fight against online bullying.” Instagram claims the AI program “notifies people when their captions on a photo…

Facebook is taking another shot at improving its fact-check process, by adding a large group of part-time contractors to help sort information from disinformation. In an attempt to assuage the concerns of conservatives and free speech advocates wary of Big Tech bias, Facebook will be partnering with YouGov to select a politically diverse community of reviewers. 

The 2020 election is going to be fought online and the left has decided to create its own fact-check unit. The Democratic National Committee started a “counter-disinformation unit” to “serve[] as a knowledge base and intelligence unit” for the party.

Some content creators are concerned about the direction platforms are taking after recent policy change announcements. Will free speech be allowed on social media? YouTube’s Vice President and Global Head of Trust & Safety Matt Halprin released a blog on Wednesday, Dec. 11, titled “An update to our harassment policy.” Halprin proclaimed in the blog that YouTube would be taking a harder stance…

Facebook announced a new policy to label state-funded media on its platform. Qatar-backed outlet Al Jazeera has a problem with that. In a letter sent by the media outlet’s lawyers to Facebook’s Vice President Jennifer Gillian Newstead and Head of Global Policy Management Monika Bickert, Al Jazeera wrote that Facebook’s policy would cause “substantial and irreparable harm” to its reputation.

As the hashtag “#youtubeisoverparty” trended following a YouTube policy update, Steven Crowder warned viewers and fellow creators their days on the platform may be numbered. Yesterday, YouTube’s Vice President and Global Head of Trust & Safety Matt Halprin released a policy update titled “An update to our harassment policy,” which YouTube explained will allow it to crack down on “harassment…

The video sharing platform and sister organization to Google may be cracking down on free speech -- this time under the guise of protecting users from “harassment.” YouTube’s Vice President and Global Head of Trust & Safety Matt Halprin released a blog on Wednesday, Dec. 11, titled “An update to our harassment policy.” As of today, YouTube’s blog announced “a series of policy and product…