Big Tech Is Meddling with Free Speech… and Elections

Posted by freedomforall 5 years, 5 months ago to Technology
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"Big Tech monsters like Google and Facebook have become nothing less than incubators for far-left liberal ideologies and are doing everything they can to eradicate conservative ideas and their proponents from the internet.

Without any sort of public mandate beyond its own ideological predisposition, the Big Tech leviathan is silencing the silent majority. A leaked internal Google brief with the Orwellian title “The Good Censor” proves this point by laying out the search giant’s plan for controlling the internet.

Google begins the report by echoing the liberal contention that free speech is a “social, economic, and political weapon,” calling it a “utopian” idea that’s no longer practical because internet users are “behaving badly.”"
SOURCE URL: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/10/23/exclusive-brad-parscale-big-tech-is-meddling-with-free-speech-and-elections/


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  • Posted by PeterSmith 5 years, 5 months ago
    That's not an example of meddling with free speech, that IS free speech. Tech companies have the right to express whatever position they want on this.
    The only threat to free speech, by definition, is from the government and anyone who thinks tech companies should be regulated or punished for having wrong opinions.
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    • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
      Yes, people at Google and Facebook have the right to express their opinion, but the right to free speech does not include a right to suppress the free speech of those who disagree with you.
      While I disagree with your posting, I have not prevented others from reading your views.
      I have not censored your opinions by suppressing them.
      Anyone that has power to censor can violate your freedom of speech. The Gulch owner may disagree with your post but they don't censor you for posting it.
      Google and Facebook are suppressing the opinions of those who disagree with them by claiming that those opinions violate the terms of use. Google and Facebook are not using the same terms to judge opinions that agree with the views of the Google and Facebook even though they are just as much in violation of the terms of use. Google and Facebook are lying about the TOU violations to censor people they disagree with just because they disagree. That is unethical and violates freedom of speech.
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      • Posted by PeterSmith 5 years, 5 months ago
        "but the right to free speech does not include a right to suppress the free speech of those who disagree with you."
        It does if it's on your property and that's not called suppressing anyone's free speech.

        "I have not censored your opinions by suppressing them."
        And you never could. Only the government can suppress speech.

        "Google and Facebook are suppressing the opinions of those who disagree with them by claiming that those opinions violate the terms of use."
        That's not an example of suppressing speech. That IS free speech. That is also property rights, freedom of association and individual rights in general.
        Tech companies have every right to do this and those who don't see this are the real threat to free speech.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 5 years, 5 months ago
    Before modern technology, people said freedom of the press was only for those who owned one. I never thought I'd see that overturned in my lifetime . Now that we have, some people say technology suppresses speech. Maybe 30 years ago these people were even more upset about free speech, but the editors didn't publish their letters so I only heard them on late night talk radio.
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  • Posted by Solver 5 years, 5 months ago
    If these companies are censoring “extreme” right speech then, in the name of fairness, they should also be able to show their censoring of an equal amount of “extreme” left speech?

    To match the new left ideology, they should be censoring every identity group fairly and equally and never stop until they finish.
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  • Posted by ycandrea 5 years, 5 months ago
    Hey, this is a free country and it is their companies. They can have any political views they want. These things just create a need and an opportunity for other companies to start right leaning tech companies. I do not see this as a threat.
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    • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
      If it is a public forum those who participate should not be censored for their political views. That is what is being done and it violates free speech. I understand your reticence, too.

      I do not agree that "this is a free country." That hasn't been true for 105 years.
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      • Posted by ycandrea 5 years, 5 months ago
        It is not a public forum, in the way a gov't run public forum is. It is a private forum open to the public. And I stand firm in their right to their own opinions. What about the owners' of the forums and their free speech?
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        • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
          No one has tried to stop the owners from expressing their opinion, but the owners have stopped people who disagree with them.
          The owners are not being honest about their censorship actions. They claim they are acting without bias. They are biased and dishonest. If they were conservatives the media would be trying to destroy them. But because they are elite statists it's fine for them to censor anyone who disagrees with them. They are lying scum hiding the truth of their actions because the truth would chase away millions of customers and crush their stock prices.
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          • Posted by ycandrea 5 years, 5 months ago
            I totally agree with you about what they are doing and I do not like it either. What do you propose should be done? I think it is a perfect opportunity for some energetic person to fill the gap of those opposing views. Google and FaceBook came out of nowhere and so can someone else. That is the only solution I can see.
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            • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
              Competition is the most obvious answer, but tearing the users away from Facebook and Google is a tough task.
              Their agreement with users probably precludes any class action. Outrage by conservative users causing a mass exodus to other services is the obvious answer, but most conservatives have friends and relatives who will keep using the services- which means that most conservatives will not leave and cut off their contacts to relatives. (As usual, I am not in the majority - I refuse to use any such services at present, but if my business needed the exposure I might accept the liars bias to increase my sales.) Could a lawsuit on freedom for speech grounds be feasible? I don't know.
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              • Posted by lrshultis 5 years, 5 months ago
                Not a tough task if you really mean 'tearing the users away...". That is a very forceful word for meaning changing a persons ideas into what you would like them to be. I would try to use rational means if it were actually necessary to change private businesses to mend their ways. First try to get most people to be rational and to choose for themselves, i.e., to be rationally moral.
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              • Posted by Lucky 5 years, 5 months ago
                There is no doubt this is happening on a large scale.
                If you want state power to stop it, it is like the baker being forced to accept a contract. There may be a way, to invoke a common carrier rule. Such a rule would not apply to a small bakery business, but certainly would to those mega-corps.

                Their agreement with users probably precludes...
                I would welcome any expert opinion on this. It does seem that terms of a contract are being broken, an implied contract?
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    • Posted by Solver 5 years, 5 months ago
      Right. As long as I’m not forced to use, or pay to support, something that I believe is against my beliefs, I have very little problem. And that’s the rub. I am forced, by the corporatists.
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  • Posted by Solver 5 years, 5 months ago
    Objectively, here is the “Good Censor Report”,
    https://www.scribd.com/document/39052...
    And a backup,
    https://vdare.com/filemanager_source/...

    “From elections and political propaganda, trolls and gendered bigotry, to hate speech and religious extremism, debates about who can and should be heard on the internet rage like never before. As governments struggle to apply existing legislation to the Wild West online, users are asking if the openness of the internet should be celebrated after all.
    Bots and troll farms lash out at free thought and controversial opinion, while faceless users attack each other without empathy. Free speech becomes a social, economic and political weapon. Automated technologies lack the sophistication to adjudicate effectively. In response, people think twice before airing their thoughts aloud, while critique is buried under avalanches of automated rebuttals, vitriolic attacks and nonsensical rhetoric. As the tech firms struggle to deal with the issues, the public and governments grow increasingly impatient.

    Yet, amongst all this negativity, seeds of political harmony, gender and racial equality, and tolerance are sown on the internet. Is it possible to have an open and inclusive internet while simultaneously limiting political oppression and
    despotism, hate, violence and harassment? Who should be responsible for censoring ‘unwanted’ conversation, anyway? Governments? Users? Google?”

    “The internet was also founded on utopian principles of free speech...”
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  • Posted by exceller 5 years, 5 months ago
    Yes.

    Sundar Pichai and many look alikes run Google.

    I saw an article the other day with photos and it seems like there is no white employee at Google.

    Anyone wondered why there are so many non-white CEOs leading tech companies or banks? Nothing wrong with them but it is doubtful they were the most talented and fit for the job.

    Microsoft is run by an Indian. Coca-Cola had an Indian CEO as well.
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    • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
      Coke went awry as soon as they got a Cuban CEO, Roberto C. Goizueta, in 1981. That's when the formula was changed and the original flavor was destroyed. It's a great example of foreign culture "fixing" what was never broken. Obama is another example.
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      • Posted by $ allosaur 5 years, 5 months ago
        It makes me widdle dino feel so warm and fuzzy to know there's always some puffed up yahoo out there who thinks he's my elite better put on this earth to show me the error of my widdle ways.
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