Censorship

Former White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short appeared on Cuomo Prime Time on Tuesday. He brought the case for scrutiny into social media and other web companies based on recent evidence that they are collectively censoring conservatives.

On Tuesday’s Hardball, an MSNBC panel addressed the growing concerns about social media platforms censoring conservatives, after President Trump accused Google on Twitter and yesterday in a pool press spray, of filtering results against him and of Facebook and Twitter censoring conservatives.

The Trump administration is potentially considering taking action against Google for reportedly censoring conservatives, following a tweet by President Trump that accused Google of rigging its results against conservatives. On Tuesday morning, Trump tweeted that Google may be engaging in an “illegal” practice by how it ranks search results. Trump said:  

Facebook has announced its new incoming chief marketing officer, Antonio Lucio. Lucio will be replacing Gary Briggs who, in January, said he would be leaving after four and a half years to pursue advisory work--and to help the Democrats in the midterms and through 2020. Like his predecessor, Lucio has also indicated he supports Democrats.  

Facebook claims it was besieged by a glitch that unintentionally marked posts as spam, fueling outrage that Facebook is allegedly engaging in politically based censorship. The incident follows several high-profile problems highlighted by site critics, especially on the right.  

The ACLU is seemingly concerned about social media censorship.  

While speaking at a rally in West Virginia on Tuesday, President Trump claimed the administration will stand up and defend people who say they are censored on social media.  

Facebook has reportedly been ranking users on their “trustworthiness” by giving them a score between zero and one, according to a report in The Washington Post.

During an interview with CNN over the weekend, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that while Twitter employees may be more left-leaning, Twitter does not discriminate against users based on their political opinions.  

Not content with letting social media sites police content on their own, five Democratic U.S. Senators have sent letters to the heads of major tech companies urging them to “proactively” block users from accessing blueprints for 3-D printed guns.

In an exclusive interview with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Wednesday, NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt wanted to know how the company went about suspending the account of deranged internet conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. And using that as a springboard, Holt wanted to know if President Trump violated the rules, like Jones did, with his “dog” tweet about former White House staffer Omarosa…

A little over a week after Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey diverged from other tech giants by stating that Alex Jones would be held to the same standard as every other account, rather than succumbing Twitter succumbing to outside pressure to ban him, Twitter has given Jones a temporary seven-day suspension.  

On Tuesday, Twitter announced vague plans to crack down on accounts that have attempted to evade Twitter suspensions by creating new accounts. In a tweet posted by Twitter Safety, the company said, “This week, we are suspending accounts for attempting to evade an account suspension. These accounts were previously suspended for abusive behavior or evading a previous suspension, and are not allowed…

On Friday, Facebook announced a new policy that will require Facebook Pages with large U.S.-based audiences to go through an authentication process. According to Facebook, this will help crack down on fake accounts. As Facebook explained, Facebook Pages, which are different from individual personal Facebook accounts, will be required to go through a two-factor authentication process to secure…