Social media giant Facebook has removed Trump campaign ads which refer to an online survey as the “Official 2020 Congressional District Census,” claiming the ads violate the company’s policy on disinformation and interference with the 2020 census.
A $50 million lawsuit brought against tech giant Google by Rep. Tusli Gabbard (D-HI) has reportedly been dismissed by a federal judge this week. Gabbard’s lawsuit alleged that Google censored the presidential candidate’s free speech by suspending her advertising account after she crushed Kamala Harris in a debate.
A report published by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab on Tuesday charged the Chinese government with heavily censoring news and discussion of the coronavirus outbreak beginning at the end of December. The report noted that China’s broad censorship practices could “restrict vital communication related to disease information and prevention.”
The Cyberspace Administration of China on Sunday imposed even tighter controls on the heavily regulated Chinese Internet, cracking down hard on those who “spread rumors,” “harm the national honor and interests,” or post “inappropriate commentary on natural disasters and major accidents.”
Donald Trump Jr. slammed “free market” defenses of big tech during a panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) yesterday, highlighting tech firms’ special privileges from the government.
The most nauseating phrase in the English language is “I’m not against free speech but…”
Several moderators of The Donald, Reddit’s largest pro-Trump community, have been purged by the site’s administrators, who aim to replace them with moderators approved by the San Francisco company. The Donald’s creators say this is the latest in Reddit’s “thousand cuts” campaign to kill off its massively successful pro-Trump community.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals announced this week that it has upheld a district court ruling dismissing PragerU’s federal case against Google and YouTube. The case is based on Google’s censorship of PragerU videos on YouTube.
Tech giant Apple is facing a shareholder vote on a proposal critical of the company’s decision to remove apps from its store at the request of the Chinese government. Shareholders want to ask Tim Cook and his company if it is “publicly committed to respect freedom of expression as a human right.”
Twitter said it censored a video posted by MRCTV, the video arm of the Media Research Center, by “mistake.” The video showed a 1980s clip of Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) defending Cuban communist dictator Fidel Castro.
Writing at the Intercept on Tuesday, Leta Hong Fincher described herself as “one of the many women Mike Bloomberg’s company tried to silence through nondisclosure agreements,” even though she never actually worked for Bloomberg’s companies.
Twitter locked the official account of WikiLeaks just days before Julian Assange’s extradition hearing, only unlocking it after WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson sparked a mass appeal on the platform.
The library system at Georgetown University announced this week that it is banning several books that students have deemed “offensive.”
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has called out Google-owned YouTube after it blacklisted a clip of him speaking on the Senate floor, an act of censorship he calls “chilling and disturbing.” Google censored Paul because he read out the name of the alleged “whistleblower,” Eric Ciaramella.
Twitter hid a tweet from Vice President Mike Pence behind a “sensitive content” filter yesterday, meaning it was placed behind a label warning users that the tweet contained “sensitive material.” Twitter said the action was a mistake and it has been corrected.
The UK Government will police “harmful” content online including “extreme pornography”, “trolling” and the spreading of “disinformation”.
Facebook recently banned links to censored.tv, a conservative streaming site featuring former Fox contributor and Vice co-founder Gavin McInnes.
Conservative parliamentarian Daniel Kawczysnki received a “formal warning” from the Conservative Party after a drive to “cancel” him for giving a speech at a conservative conference attended by Viktor Orbán and Matteo Salvini.
Franklin Graham, the Evangelical preacher and son of the late Billy Graham, has been barred from all seven planned venues in his upcoming tour of the United Kingdom.
On Thursday, the Global Times announced the death of doctor Li Wenliang from the virus, a development widely taken as evidence the coronavirus is more dangerous than the Chinese government is willing to admit
Governments across Asia are increasing censorship efforts and media controls to suppress “fake news” about the Wuhan coronavirus epidemic, a problem the World Health Organization (WHO) also expressed concerns about on Tuesday. Free speech advocates are worried about rising censorship levels in a region that already had serious problems with authoritarianism.
Actor-comedian Rob Schneider on Thursday slammed Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) over her proposal to “fight the spread of false information” on social media, sarcastically thanking her for “treating Americans like we are so completely f**king stupid that we can’t think for ourselves.”
A support group for Angel Families — the American families and friends of the victims of illegal alien crime, was suspended from Twitter for nearly a month until Breitbart News asked the platform why, at which point the account was promptly restored.
More left-wing journalists are waking up to the fact that unaccountable Silicon Valley corporations are ranking Americans with a system that bears a growing resemblance to China’s totalitarian “social credit” system — almost a year after Breitbart Tech pointed out the same thing.
Florida State Senator and GOP Leader Joe Gruters will announce a bill next week that will allow Floridians to sue social media companies that censor their political speech, and will restrict the ability of social media companies to use “hate speech” policies as a legal defense for censorship.
A British university is paying students to spy on their classmates and report them for any language they deem to be a teeny bit offensive.
Just as the virulently anti-Thatcher Conservative Party became momentarily “Thatcherite” when Baroness Thatcher passed away, establishment Conservative Party figures have been out in force eulogising Sir Roger Scruton upon his passing this week. Where were they less than a year ago when he was being fired from their government for holding “unacceptable views”?
The world’s largest debate tournament, known as the World Universities Debating Championship, which was held in Bangkok, Thailand, censored a debate on the topic of Hong Kong this week after a group of Chinese students protested the topic’s inclusion by leaving the venue.
Slate reported in December that the Wikipedia article for 2020 Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg was created by Neehar Garg, a former volunteer for one of his state campaigns. While Garg admitted to Slate that he operated the accounts responsible for Buttigieg’s page, Wikipedia administrators used their advanced privileges to censor mentions of the report from both Buttigieg’s article and other parts of Wikipedia, claiming it was to protect Garg’s identity.
Facebook has a high opinion of itself. Its leadership appears to believe that its point of view on what is and is not a major news item is more important than that of the President of the United States.
The tech giants had imposed a code of censorship, and the mainstream media, supposedly so sensitive to any threat to press freedom, (mostly) willingly complied.
MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) – A Pakistani court on Saturday convicted a Muslim professor of blasphemy, sentencing him to death for allegedly spreading anti-Islamic ideas.
Angela Merkel’s government is preparing a new bill that will force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to hand over data, including passwords, of those accused of engaging in “hate speech” online.
In a blow to free speech protections in the United Kingdom, a judge in an employment tribunal has ruled that there is no right to question whether a transgender person is a man or a woman.
Scottish Police are investigating a possible “hate speech” crime after signs appeared throughout Perth reading: “It’s okay to be white.”
A comedy night banned Conservative-voting comedians in the name of “inclusiveness” in the wake of the British general election, telling them to find “free speech zones” elsewhere.
China’s state television network, CCTV, banned a Premier League football match between Arsenal and Manchester City after Arsenal’s Mesut Ozil criticised the Chinese Communist Party for imprisoning millions of Turkic Muslims in concentration camps.
Thailand’s new “Anti Fake News Center” concluded its first month of operations this week, to catcalls from critics who found its work product shoddy and primarily focused on suppressing criticism of the government.
Facebook has published an update on its work to develop a “Global Oversight Board,” that commentators have colloquially dubbed the “Facebook Supreme Court.” The update reveals Facebook worked closely with a progressive nonprofit that pushes causes like climate change, “diversity,” and “sustainability” to corporations around the world.
Google-owned YouTube has given itself a broad new range of powers to ban and demonetize channels for “harassment,” including the ability to demonetize channels that haven’t violated its policies in any one video.
