Google, Twitter and Facebook should tell truth if they don’t like conservatives
The news is full of stories of social media giants like Twitter shadow banning or suppressing politically conservative or libertarian groups. Recently, PragerU found that nine of its videos had been made invisible by Facebook, meaning that no one could see the videos, and thus blocking their reach. Facebook followed a familiar apology pattern, stating that the videos had been “mistakenly removed.”
In 2017, PragerU sued Google for hiding some of its videos and demonetizing them as well on YouTube. Similarly, Twitter recently apologized to conservative commentator Candace Owens for “mistakenly” blocking her tweets after she paraphrased the racist tweets of Sarah Jeong, a new New York Times editorial board member to make a point about double standard.
In April, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company made an “enforcement error” in labeling conservative, pro-Trump commentators Diamond and Silk as “dangerous.”
As a small-government conservative, I’m uncomfortable with calls to regulate Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, though. I don’t want the federal government to have control over the social media giants.
However, I do want the social media giants, whom we at Students for Life spend money to advertise with, to be honest with us and provide accurate estimates on how the money we spend with them will produce results. For example, when we boost a video we produce to reach a specific audience, Facebook estimates how many more views or sign-ups we can expect. But if they are hiding our posts from our audience, they are purposefully misrepresenting their estimates.
Likewise, there is another issue if Facebook sells us on one result and then changes the game midway through. If we invest thousands of dollars in building up a Facebook audience, then Facebook deliberately suppresses conservative content, they have changed the agreement we made when we started investing money in building an audience under the presumption it would increase our reach.
If Facebook does not want conservative groups on its platform, it must make that clear and stop claiming it is there to allow people “to share and express what matters to them.”
The same with Twitter: “to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information, instantly, without barriers.” Youtube: “to give everyone a voice and show them the world.” Google: “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful ... for everyone.”
Simply make it clear: We believe that supporting the protection of innocent life, supporting Trump, supporting tax cuts, etc. goes against our values and community standards. Therefore, conservative groups will find their material blocked, suppressed, or shadow banned. We do not actually believe in an open marketplace of ideas, instead, we support a place where people who are not conservative, who support Hillary Clinton, who want to restrict gun access, and who want legalized abortion on demand are free to share their own ideas alongside videos of cute puppies and cats. Conservatives need not sign up. After all, honesty is the best policy. Matt Lamb is the director of communications for Students for Life of America. Follow him on Twitter: @mattmlamb. To answer before listening – that is folly and shame. Proverbs 18:13
TODAY’S BIBLE VERSE