Congress, once again, has the chance to grill Big Tech CEOs about their censorship of conservatives , but whether members will actually take advantage of this opportunity is questionable at best.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Google CEO Sundar Pichai are scheduled to testify before the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology and the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce on March 25 at noon. If Congress truly wanted to hold Big Tech accountable, members could ask the following five questions.
1. This should be asked of all three: Do you support free expression?
- The freedom of expression is the cornerstone of any republic. If everyone doesn’t have the right to free speech, then no one has the right to free speech. Yet you restricted the former president of the United States and allow dictators to post without restriction. How do you rationalize that?
2. Here's a Zuckerberg question: Why has Facebook taken so little action against Antifa?
- Multiple Antifa-affiliated accounts have remained active on Facebook. Rose City Antifa’s page has remained active on Facebook, despite the fact that Facebook vowed to crack down on “Dangerous Individuals and Organizations.” Facebook’s crackdown resulted in the purge of QAnon accounts, but only some pages associated with Antifa. Rose City Antifa specifically was called out by The Washington Post for allegedly assaulting journalist Andy Ngo. Smash Racism DC, another Antifa group, allegedly showed up at Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s house. The Fox News host said that the group “broke his oak door and one person mentioned a pipe bomb, as heard on a security video,” reported USA Today.
3. This is for Pichai: Does YouTube not consider medical doctors to be a valid source of information regarding COVID-19?
- YouTube has censored videos from Dr. Drew Pinsky and even sworn Senate testimony from Dr. Pierre Kory after he discussed the drug Ivermectin as a possible treatment for COVID-19. Is it the policy of YouTube to censor things that go on in these hallowed halls? Will YouTube censor me for asking this?
4. And, not to be left out, here's a question for Dorsey: What is Twitter doing to counter China’s denial of its genocide against ethnic minorities?
- Twitter Public Policy tweeted on March 18: “Our team stands in solidarity with Asian communities around the world and remains committed to the work that must be done to #StopAsianHate.” But when it comes to taking action against Chinese government accounts that downplay or outright deny the Chinese Communist Party’s genocide against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang it hasn’t acted. One tweet from Hua Chunying, a CCP government official, contained a graphic titled, “Does Xinjiang really have a ‘forced sterilization’ policy?” The graphic also claimed that people in Xinjiang believe “[f]ewer and better births bring lifelong happiness.”
The same account also tweeted: “There has been no such thing as ‘genocide,’ ‘forced labor’ or ‘religious oppression’ in #Xinjiang. These sensational accusations are the results of ignorance & bias. They are ill-intentioned political hype-up that totally run counter to facts.” In reality, Uyghur women have undergone horrific treatment, including forced sterilization and abortion, according to an Associated Press (AP) report from last year. “They’re subjected to political and religious re-education in camps and forced labor in factories, while their children are indoctrinated in orphanages,” according to the report.
You give a nation committing genocide against Asians full access to your platform. Would you have allowed Nazi Germany on Twitter before World War II?
5. Finally, here's another one for Dorsey: Would a tweet calling for a “firm, armed resistance” violate Twitter’s policies?
- Twitter has recently cracked down on QAnon accounts. Twitter also banned former President Donald Trump “due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” the company said in a blog post. Meanwhile, Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei tweeted in May 2020: “The elimination of the Zionist regime does not mean the massacre of the Jewish ppl. The ppl of Palestine should hold a referendum. Any political sys they vote for should govern in all of Palestine. The only remedy until the removal of the Zionist regime is firm, armed resistance.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that they ask Big Tech tough questions, and hold platforms to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
