President Trump and the GOP must take action against the online media platforms

Conservative Speech is under siege by the online media platforms. How can the Republican Party not take significant action against the online media platforms, despite having control of both houses of Congress? Why has Attorney General Jeff Sessions not addressed the issue of suppressing conservative speech by the online media platforms, despite their political bias being obvious?

In April of this year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the Senate. When questioned by Senator Ted Cruz about Facebook’s conservative bias, Zuckerberg admitted that Silicon Valley is an extremely “left-leaning place,” but claimed that Facebook was a “platform of all ideas.” Zuckerberg was not truthful. When Cruz questioned Zuckerberg, he exposed the fact that Facebook had suppressed conservative organizations such as Chik-fil-A, but not liberal organizations such as Planned Parenthood.

In August, President Trump stated that the Google algorithm was displaying (for the most part) extremely negative content about him and his administration. Earlier this month, a video emerged of the Google executives being openly distraught about Trump being elected President. How can anyone expect Google to treat Trump and conservatives objectively? Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has admitted a left-leaning bias on Twitter. Dorsey has also stated that the company’s left-leaning bias “doesn’t influence company policy.” Oh really? How stupid does Dorsey think people are? President Trump has referred to the actions of Twitter as “discriminatory and illegal.” Just recently Dorsey admitted that Twitter’s conservative employees “don’t feel safe” expressing their opinions.

The GOP must understand that if they continue to allow the left to dominate the online media platforms, they will lose elections en masse in the coming years. The suppression of conservative speech on the online and social media platforms (the public space), is an existential threat to the Republican Party and the First Amendment.

Trump made a terrible mistake in selecting Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. Sessions’ performance as AG has been appalling. No one should expect Sessions to take any significant action against the online platforms. A capable and aggressive Attorney General could ensure that the First Amendment is preserved for all Americans. President Trump needs to replace Jeff Sessions as quickly as possible.

“Google, Twitter and Facebook should just be honest if they don’t like conservatives,” by Matt Lamb, USA Today, September 12, 2018:

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube need to be honest about what they will remove or shadow ban instead of suppressing conservatives and claiming fairness.

The news is full of stories of social media giants like Twitter shadow banning or suppressing politically conservative or libertarian groups. Recently, PragerU found that nine of its videos had been made invisible by Facebook, meaning that no one could see the videos, and thus blocking their reach. Facebook followed a familiar apology pattern, stating that the videos had been “mistakenly removed.”

In 2017, PragerU sued Google for hiding some of its videos and demonetizing them as well on YouTube. Similarly, Twitter recently apologized to conservative commentator Candace Owens for “mistakenly” blocking her tweets after she paraphrased the racist tweets of Sarah Jeong, a new New York Times editorial board member to make a point about double standard.

In April, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company made an “enforcement error” in labeling conservative, pro-Trump commentators Diamond and Silk as “dangerous.” As a small-government conservative, I’m uncomfortable with calls to regulate Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, though. I don’t want the federal government to have control over the social media giants

However, I do want the social media giants, whom we at Students for Life spend money to advertise with, to be honest with us and provide accurate estimates on how the money we spend with them will produce results. For example, when we boost a video we produce to reach a specific audience, Facebook estimates how many more views or sign-ups we can expect. But if they are hiding our posts from our audience, they are purposefully misrepresenting their estimates.

A disturbing trend against conservatives

Likewise, there is another issue if Facebook sells us on one result and then changes the game midway through. If we invest thousands of dollars in building up a Facebook audience, then Facebook deliberately suppresses conservative content, they have changed the agreement we made when we started investing money in building an audience under the presumption it would increase our reach. It is like being paid to build a house, and then on the last day ramming a bulldozer into the house. Yes, you would say, you did build the house and follow that contract, but then you changed the game at the last minute and ruined the product we paid you to produce….