U.S. Senate candidate Bill Hagerty slammed Facebook officials on Tuesday after an undercover video revealed that officials at the social media company flagged and deleted posts that supported President Donald Trump.
In a statement on his campaign’s website, Hagerty said Facebook officials did this to undermine Trump’s 2020 presidential re-election campaign.
Hagerty said in the statement that Facebook officials were pushing their political bias over free speech. He demanded answers.
“This blatant attack on conservatives’ free speech proves what we’ve known all along – liberals will stop at nothing to undermine President Trump and silence his supporters,” Hagerty said.
“We’ve now learned Facebook had teams of employees flagging and deleting posts in support of President Trump – that is unacceptable. No social media platform should be the arbiter of what’s true and what’s not. In the Senate, I will continue to stand with President Trump and Senator Marsha Blackburn to ensure conservatives’ voices are protected from biased social media platforms.”
Members of Project Veritas reported the investigation on their website Tuesday.
Someone in one video asked a content moderator if she deleted every Republican item that appeared on her queue. The woman said: “Yes! I don’t give no f*cks, I’ll delete it.”
The same moderator said she does not take down anti-Trump content, even if it did violate policy.
Another content moderator, Lara Kontakos, said if she saw someone wearing a Make America Great Again hat then she would delete that person “for terrorism.”
According to Project Veritas’ investigation, Steve Grimmett, a content review lead, “said it was Facebook’s culture to target the president and his supporters.”
Facebook insider Zach McElroy said he will testify before Congress about what he called Facebook’s bias against Trump supporters and conservative causes, according to Project Veritas.
As reported this week, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said Google and its parent company, Alphabet, pose a “threat to a free and fair press in America” in a letter sent Sunday to U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr.
The Department of Justice is currently investigating Google in an antitrust probe, but a recent report from The Daily Caller found that investigators do not appear to be examining claims of bias in the company’s search engine.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
The Trump Administration has done nothing on this issue. First, they were “monitoring” the situation. Now, we are 3.5 years in and we are going to “investigate”. True conservative platforms were banned 2+ years ago. Now they are going after the true moderate, self-styled conservative websites and content. And, we go from “monitoring” to “investigating” with 2 minutes left in the game and down by 4 touchdowns. Ridiculous.