Free Speech

When actor/comedian Sacha Baron Cohen blasted Facebook, world famous industrialist Elon Musk was quick to support him. Cohen, known for his prankster “Borat” role, slammed Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg in a Feb. 5 tweet. He asked, “Why do we let 1 man control the information seen by 2.5 billion people? Facebook needs to be regulated by governments, not ruled by an emperor!” Musk, known…

President Donald Trump tweeted an edited video that showed Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi repeatedly tearing up the State of the Union speech, with other clips of the president’s successes pieced in the video. Democrats were outraged. “The latest fake video of Speaker Pelosi is deliberately designed to mislead and lie to the American people,” said Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, Drew Hammill.

Oh how the times have changed. One of the most popular liberal tech writers has lamented that Republican social media strategy in the Trump era has changed the game. Recode co-founder and New York Times contributor Kara Swisher wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times headlined “Sorry, Republicans Rule the Internet.” Her accompanying tweet to the Feb 4 article lamented that “GOP tech…

The billionaire candidate who came out of nowhere has apparently decided that paying young social media stars to promote him is the key to success.The Daily Beast alleged that former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg is using Tribe, a talent pool of young “micro-influencers” described as social media stars with between “1,000 to 100,000 followers,” seemingly to make his presidential run look…

Do YouTube’s hate speech policies try to protect even demonic entities? A video produced by The Catholic Talk Show entitled, “7 Secrets Catholic Exorcists Want You to Know,” was deleted by YouTube for violating hate speech rules. A video produced by The Catholic Talk Show entitled, “7 Secrets Catholic Exorcists Want You to Know,” was deleted by YouTube for violating hate speech rules. 

President Donald Trump’s presence on Twitter receives almost countless mentions in the media. Imagine what that’s done to Twitter’s notoriety. The social media platform Twitter has gone up in market value significantly since Trump’s election in 2016, according to Forbes.

Will Facebook’s new oversight board be the platform to ensure free speech or a Big Tech kangaroo court? The site’s in-house newsroom posted a developer blog on Jan. 28 which announced the platform’s upcoming oversight board. While its actual members will be chosen and announced “[i]n the coming months,” Facebook staff did reveal that “the first Director of Oversight Board Administration will be…

Republicans and Democrats do not tend to agree on a much these days, but both sides of the aisle have come together to agree on at least one thing -- both distrust Big Tech.

Meme creators and free speech advocates feel they will be the first casualty of the latest war on “manipulated content” by Big Tech. Twitter Safety announced via tweet on Jan 4 a new rule that forbids “manipulated media,” possibly including humorous video edits or memes. Such content may now either be labeled or removed from the platform entirely.

The GOP thinks that fighting Big Tech censorship might be a winning election issue. So much so, that the party is surveying voters about the issue as part of a nationwide grassroots effort. Former D.C. bureau chief for Investor's Business Daily and author Paul Sperry tweeted “BREAKING: New RNC questionnaire mailed to voters nationwide asks: ‘Do you believe social media companies are suppressing…

Facebook declared in its terms of service update that "denying existence" of people based on “protected characteristics” is a violation of its community standards on "hate speech." Facebook updated its community standards with little fanfare this past December. In a statement, the social media giant explained that it is forbidden to target a person or group of people on the basis of “…

Disinformation is the new buzzword for the left to push for more censorship on Twitter. While results from the Iowa Caucus are still being counted, journalists from the left want tweets from the right taken down. “Trump campaign folks are tweeting veiled suggestions Iowa is ‘rigged,’” tweeted Washington Post senior tech policy reporter Tony Romm.

“Comfortably Smug,” an anonymous but vastly popular Twitter account with 178.3k followers, was reportedly censored by Twitter on Monday for poking fun at a gaffe Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden made on the campaign trail. Comfortably Smug’s tweet apparently got the Twitter account suspended, and the original tweet removed, but Smug Industries, “another account run by multiple users close to ‘…

The Chinese social media app TikTok, which has become one of the most popular apps for youth in the United States, has banned pro-life group Live Action. The organization’s founder, Lila Rose, tweeted on Jan. 31, 2020, “TikTok has just BANNED & permanently removed Live Action from the platform.”