Big tech companies want to help impact the upcoming midterm election.
On National Voter Registration Day, several top social media/search media firms — including Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat — urged users to register to vote. They provided users with links to an organization called TurboVote Challenge, a supposedly nonpartisan coalition from Turbovote, part of Democracy Works, “championing civic engagement in the U.S.” Only the group gives several indications that it has a liberal agenda.
At least five of the members of TurboVote’s executive board are liberal out of 10 members, while 10 of 31 of their corporate partners and four out of eight non-profit partners are liberal. None of the corporate partners has a conservative reputation. Most are tech or media firms. Only one non-profit partner, My Faith Votes, leans right.
The executive board is composed of Amazon, AppNexus, Automattic, BET, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Snapchat, and Starbucks.
After the leaked emails that implied that Google execs were trying to influence the 2016 election, the search engine company should probably think twice before being on the executive board of TurboVote. In an exclusive statement to the Media Research Center, Google claimed that TurboVote was a “nonpartisan corporate initiative to support voter participation.” However, the company failed to address why the majority of the corporate partners were decidedly left-leaning.
When asked for comment, TurboVote declined to respond to the Media Research Center’s inquiries.
The corporate and non-profit partners of TurboVote are mostly liberal, either through media associations or company political stance. Amazon is owned by Jeff Bezos, who also owns the liberal Washington Post. BET network publishes angry letters at people who refused to vote for Hillary Clinton. Starbucks is noted for being “woke” and politically correct, from banning straws to hosting nationwide racial training for its employees. AirBnB publicly endorsed Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Mic and Now This promote mostly liberal opinions on their sites. SalesForce’s CEO Marc Benioff just purchased the Daily Beast, a left-wing news site. Change.org, Environmental Defense Fund, Global Citizen, and Young Invincibles are all left-wing activist non-profit organizations.
A Facebook representative told the Media Research Center that “past and present TurboVote partners include the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Restaurant Association, My Faith Votes, and the National African American Gun Association.” But the current coalition only includes My Faith Votes. The one conservative organization is vastly outnumbered against the 19 liberal partners.
And somehow, users are supposed to believe that this coalition is a nonpartisan strategy for votes? Given Google’s past, this seems unlikely.
