Free Speech

Facebook is allegedly trying to monitor its workers’ psychiatric trauma sessions. According to a letter written by whistleblowers within Accenture, a Facebook contractor, “This pressuring of a licensed counselor to divulge confidential information is at best a careless breach of trust into the Wellness program and, at worst, an ethics and possible legal violation.”

Twitter is an American company, but the social media platform has been taking money from the People’s Republic of China to run ads against the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests. Pinboard, the social bookmarking website run by developer Maciej Cegłowski, captured ads on Twitter from China Xinhua News which called for “a brake to be put on the blatant violence” in Hong Kong.

Google employees aren’t happy with the idea of working with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement or the Customs and Border Protection. A petition written by Googlers called for Google to avoid working with ICE and the CBP, as well as the Office of Refugee Resettlement was published August 14.

Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) questioned  whether Facebook was entirely honest in its previous Hill testimony about recording its users’ supposedly private conversations. Peters wrote in an Aug. 15 letter “regarding recent reports that, counter to your prior testimony to Congress, Facebook Inc. (Facebook), has collected, transcribed, analyzed, and used data from private audio conversations of…

Check for flying pigs, 5 LGBTQ+ YouTube channels famous for bearded drag queens, progressive politics, and sex-ed are agreeing with conservatives on censorship. No less than five channels have joined together for a lawsuit against YouTube and its parent company Google. According to Buzzfeed, they have accused the Big Tech platform of “hiding their videos, removing subscribers, and denying…

Project Veritas dropped a massive 950-page leak from Google whistleblower Zachary Vorhies that showed how the company allegedly manipulates search results. Among the topics Google/YouTube manipulated were pro-life advocacy, questioning various terror attacks, and several political organizations including the Heritage Foundation. The August 14 leak also explained how the “Twiddler” system lets…

In the extensive document drop from former Google engineer Zach Vorhies, a section dedicated to hiring diversity, called “TGIF: Diversity at Google,” revealed a troubling aspect about Google. Discussions among executives and employees alike revealed that Google was willing to work extra hard in order to achieve its idea of perfect diversity in its workforce.

In an explosive, f-bomb filled video, CNN Anchor Chris Cuomo threatened to throw his critic down a flight of stairs after he called him “Fredo” a reference to the pathetic middle child of the Corleone family in The Godfather film series. YouTube took down the video, but quickly restored it after both Don Jr. and the president himself blasted the company for the takedown. 

Google used a blacklist and a blocklist for search results. And those two lists reportedly blocked  a large amount of conservative content from the app — including NewsBusters. A Google whistleblower, Zachary Vorhies, shared several documents with James O’Keefe and Project Veritas that were released August 14.

Facebook has been recording audio clips of its users and paying contractors to copy what they say. According to Bloomberg, the employees, “who are not told where the audio was recorded or how it was obtained” are merely told to transcribe it. The anonymous workers explained how they are “hearing Facebook users’ conversations, sometimes with vulgar content, but do not know why Facebook needs them…

A lawsuit against Facebook has ended in a loss for the massive social media platform. Reuters reported that a federal court ruled against Facebook, declaring that it illegally collected and stored biometric data of users without their consent. Shawn Williams, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said “This biometric data is so sensitive that if it is compromised, there is simply no recourse.

A viral video showing CNN Anchor Chris Cuomo threatening to throw a Trump supporter down the stairs has been removed from YouTube by the platform. The YouTube channel “That’s the POINT with Brandon” posted a video showing Cuomo threatening a Trump supporter.  

A draft of an executive order to be released by the White House found that at least 15,000 people had been affected by political censorship online. CNN reported that a summary of the draft stated that the White House “has received more than 15,000 anecdotal complaints of social media platforms censoring American political discourse.”

The media want to make a scapegoat out of platforms that have untethered free speech. Even when they clearly aren’t at fault. In a report about a shooter who attacked a mosque in Oslo, Norway on August 10, The New York Times reported that the killer posted to 8chan, a chat platform which was blamed for the El Paso massacre.