At the heart of the controversy is an episode of the ACU show America UnCanceled that featured Trump announcing a series of upcoming lawsuits filed against Google, Twitter and Facebook. The timing of the ACU's ban prevented it from posting coverage of President Trump's July 11th speech at the Dallas CPAC conference.
The chairman of the ACU, Matt Schlapp, said: "It is clear that YouTube censored CPAC because we stood with former President Donald Trump on his lawsuit against Big Tech. This is yet another example of Big Tech censoring content with which they disagree in order to promote the political positions they favor.”
It is not entirely clear what the group did to violate YouTube's community guidelines. The reason given by the platform was a violation of its policy regarding "medical misinformation" related to COVID-19. Although they did not specify which information they had a problem with, the ACU believes it could be a study referenced by Trump carried out by the Saint Barnabas Medical Center claiming that hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for COVID-19.
However, their censorship probably had a lot more to do with the fact that they are an unabashedly conservative group – although it certainly must not have helped that they were talking about a lawsuit against the owner of YouTube.
The ACU announced last week that it was planning to join lawsuits against Big Tech infringements on free speech.
Schlapp stated: “It is my honor to stand alongside President Trump and the brave citizens from across the country who had the courage to stand up to Big Tech, even though they have little power, except for their rights enshrined in the Constitution, including the First Amendment, which is the birthright of every American.”
He added that the lawsuit would break the “stranglehold” of Big Tech over freedom of speech.
Americans are fed up with Big Tech censorship
During his speech at the CPAC conference – the one that the ACU was prevented from live-streaming thanks to the ban – Trump spoke out about Big Tech censorship. He referred to the famous New York Post article exposing the corruption of President Joe Biden and his son Hunter ahead of the election. Despite the fact that the well-documented piece came from a credible source, Facebook and Twitter banned the New York Post's account of the story. Although this may seem insignificant to some people, Trump referenced a poll that indicated that at least 10% of Biden's voters would not have voted for him if they knew about the scandal.
Trump has spoken in the past about Big Tech’s “brazen and shameless” censorship and discrimination, which includes not only banning users but deplatforming entire organizations and stopping people from sharing information.
Trump is suing Big Tech companies and their CEOs over censorship in legal action filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida with backing from the nonprofit America First Policy Institute.
Trump has been permanently banned from Twitter and is also under a two-year suspension from Facebook after posts he made about the Capitol riots in January. Writing about Big Tech’s behavior in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Trump said: “This should alarm you no matter your political persuasion. It is unacceptable, unlawful and un-American.”
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