MRC Free Speech America’s CensorTrack database reached an important milestone as it continues to monitor the war Big Tech companies have waged on free speech online.
CensorTrack has now surpassed 3,500 total censorship cases documented by the MRC Free Speech America team. People and accounts across the internet were suppressed for various reasons, including COVID-19 commentary, criticism of President Joe Biden, election-related content, and much more. One reality is clear, censorship algorithms will target anyone who disagrees with established narratives, regardless of their status.
Big Tech technocrats have targeted: former President Donald Trump, members of Congress, media personalities like conservative radio hosts Mark Levin and Dan Bongino, popular podcasters like Joe Rogan and Tim Pool, journalists like Just the News founder John Solomon, and doctors like mRNA vaccine technology innovator Dr. Robert Malone.
Recently, an MRC Free Speech America study found a whopping 808 cases of Big Tech companies like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok and Google Ads silencing any opinion they didn’t agree with on the COVID-19 pandemic.
The worst case of documented COVID-19 censorship came from Facebook. The platform deleted the Great Barrington Declaration’s account page. Prominent international disease experts developed the declaration to oppose harsh COVID-19 lockdowns imposed on citizens by many national governments, including the implementation of measures shown to have “little to no effect” on COVID-19 mortality, according to a recent Johns Hopkins University study.
The Hopkins study underscored how unjustifiable Facebook’s deletion of the pro-freedom Great Barrington Declaration page was. Removed about a year ago, the declaration was later proved to be accurate. The declaration discussed the pro-freedom viewpoints of those against lockdowns and has garnered over 928,000 signatures in support of its argument: “Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health.” The signatories include over 15,000 medical and public health scientists and over 46,000 medical practitioners.
One action this week displays the extremity of Big Tech’s biased war against free speech.
Facebook also censored Heritage Action, the advocacy arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, March 15, 2022, simply for a video quoting Biden’s embarrassing statements on energy policy.
Facebook placed an interstitial, or filter, over Heritage Action’s video, suppressing the post’s reach. The video showed Biden and his administration explaining how his policies would cause gas prices to rise.
The interstitial labeled the video as “Missing context” and links to a fact-check in hopes of discrediting it. Heritage Action’s video also dared to include an interview showing Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm laughing when asked about Biden’s oil drilling policy. The video then shows a series of clips of Biden proclaiming he will stop domestic drilling on federal land and offshore facilities.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
