Free Speech

Tech giants have more power and influence than most people realize. Psychologist and tech researcher Dr. Robert Epstein explained in a new article for the Epoch Times 10 ways that Google and Facebook could affect the midterm elections.

Big tech companies want to help impact the upcoming midterm election. On National Voter Registration Day, several top social media/search media firms — including Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat — urged users to register to vote.  

Google has finally decided to take calls for government hearings seriously. After refusing to send an executive to social media hearings on September 5, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai has agreed to meet privately with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and other Republican party members on Friday, September 28.

Twitter has proposed a new policy to crack down on “dehumanizing speech.” And with a new policy comes a new reference for its actions. In a Twitter blog post written by Del Harvey, Twitter’s Vice President of Trust and Safety, and Vijaya Gadde, Legal, Policy and Trust & Safety Lead, the social media site prepared to expand its safety policy.

Twitter and Facebook are eager to take down or block users who violate their terms of service … but only if they swing to the right of the spectrum. After Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) was driven from a restaurant in DC by a group called Smash Racism DC, a branch of Antifa, the activists took to Twitter and Facebook to delight in their supposed victory.

Liberal Hollywood can tweet or post whatever it wants. But when a conservative posts something, it’s considered “a violation” — even when it’s just a humorous meme. Actor James Woods was recently suspended from Twitter for doing just that, posting content that apparently violated Twitter’s terms of service.

A recent study released by Stanford University measures just how much fake news is on Facebook and Twitter. However, the data had a built-in bias and slammed conservative content as “fake news.” In the study, “Trends in the Diffusion of Misinformation on Social Media,” Hunt Allcott, Matthew Gentzkow, and Chuan Yu measured fake news on Facebook and Twitter from January 2015 to July 2018.

Google keeps waving off concerns that they’ve been showing bias against conservative viewpoints. Yet new reports indicate that a group of the company’s programmers discussed ways they could use the search engine to combat Donald Trump’s travel ban online.

Google has more power and control than most people realize and a top tech researcher is warning about it. In an interview at the D.C. premiere of the Creepy Line, a documentary on the dangers of Google and Facebook, Dr. Robert Epstein told the Media Research Center that Google was building personal profiles of users mainly through Gmail

A new study of YouTube exposed what it called a “conspiracy ecosystem” of content creators that tried to connect prominent conservatives with a well-known racist and package them together as “far-right” or “reactionary” “extremists.”

It’s hard to paint a positive picture of big tech companies, especially when it becomes apparent that they are manipulating users. On September 19, The Creepy Line, a documentary on Facebook and Google, will premiere in Washington D.C.  “Facebook and Google started with a great idea and great ideals,” said journalist Peter Schweizer in his film.

Pro-life advertisements on Twitter are censored immediately. But ads for female genital mutilation? Those got approved. The Dawoodi Bohra Women for Religious Freedom posted a tweet on September 9 promoting khafz, or female circumcision. This tweet was allowed by Twitter Ads to become a sponsored tweet, popping up in people’s feeds randomly.  

After a week of leaked Google emails and videos implying that Google may have tried to influence the 2016 election, it’s time for some answers. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told head of Family Research Council Tony Perkins on his Washington Watch radio show that it was time for Google to “come into a hearing.”

Even though Twitter apparently promotes “healthy conversation,” conservatives who work there are afraid to express their opinions. In an interview on NYU liberal journalism Professor Jay Rosen’s podcast, posted on Recode, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey explained how he felt about where Twitter stood politically as a platform.