On Tuesday, several prominent conservatives participated in the Social Media Neutrality Panel at the Newseum in Washington D.C., including Jim Hoft of The Gateway Pundit, Pamela Geller of The Geller Report, Margaret Howell of Rightside Broadcasting, tech entrepreneur Marlene Jaeckel and Oleg Atbashian from The People’s Cube.
At one point during the event, Oleg Atbashian, who is an author, satirist and graphic artist from the former USSR, commented on how supposed “fact checkers” that are hired by Silicon Valley to moderate certain content and information on the Internet are not only disingenuous, but also working to destroy all points of view that do not align with the progressive agenda. For Atbashian’s full statement on the issue, you can watch the video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZGoMz-rqwI
Quite frankly, Atbashian couldn’t be any more correct. For years now, websites like Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have been taking steps to curb what they consider to be “hateful” or “inaccurate” information, which incidentally, always seems to be articles or posts that contain conservative messages. In this way, the title of “fact checkers” that these people have given themselves is really just a front – they claim to stand for the truth so that nobody bothers to look into their true goals and motives. But as conservative content continues to be targeted for suppression and censorship, that mask is finally beginning to slip off. (Related: Google, Facebook and Twitter are now routinely violating the First Amendment to silence all non-conforming voices.)
One of the most blatant examples of censorship from these so-called Internet fact checkers occurred back in October of last year, when Twitter blocked a pro-life campaign ad put out by GOP Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s Senate campaign team over concerns that the ad may offend some viewers.
In the ad, Blackburn, who had previously chaired a House panel investigating Planned Parenthood’s sale of fetal tissue, claims to have “stopped the sale of baby body parts.” Not long after the campaign ad was published on Twitter, a representative for the social media giant reached out to Blackburn’s team and explained that the ad’s reference to fetal tissue was “deemed an inflammatory statement that is likely to evoke a strong negative reaction.” (Related: An undercover video of Twitter engineers has revealed how tech giants have devolved into dangerous left-wing censorship regimes.)
This is exactly why the founding fathers would be astonished at the left’s constant attempts to silence conservative speech – because the First Amendment of the Constitution doesn’t say “the people shall have the freedom of speech, unless that speech is likely to evoke a strong negative reaction.” This is a God-given right, not a law that can simply be ignored or repealed in the name of protecting the feelings of others.
Twitter is just one example. In the past, Google, YouTube and Facebook have all participated in this sort of anti-conservative censorship as well. If America’s future is going to be one that is centered on the principles of individual liberty and the freedom of speech, then conservatives must speak out against this before we condemn our children and our grandchildren to decades of authoritarianism.
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