According to Friday reports, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) was censored by Facebook for a post about biological males playing women’s sports.
“Biological men have no place in women’s sports,” Blackburn reportedly said on the social media giant, linking to a fundraising page.
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U.S. Senate candidate Jim Lamon, who is running as a Republican for office in Arizona to defeat incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, is making waves with his provocative, bold TV campaign spots. The left-leaning big tech companies don’t like them, however, and so both Yahoo and Facebook have pushed back, with Yahoo actually censoring them. While broadcast TV is generally required by law to run political ads (FCC rules state that if a station allows state and local political candidates to run ads, they must accept them from all candidates), big tech is not. Yahoo refused to run an ad of his because it merely said “Let’s Go Brandon.”
Stephen Puetz, one of Lamon’s campaign staffers, told The Arizona Sun Times the ads are making a difference in getting Lamon’s name known, since polls show his support is increasing. Lamon is running against Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich in the Republican primary, who has considerable name recognition, and another candidate, Blake Masters, is making significant ground due to funding from his boss, Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel.
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MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell on Sunday launched a new Twitter account that was suspended less than four hours after its creation.
On the move by the social media giant, Lindell said, “Like the [banned] Twitter account, it’s more corrupt than you’ve seen there. Twitter, a week before that – a week before – they put up a fake account. Twitter’s done this three times to me, and then they run the account, and act like they’re me. So they go, ‘Oh, Mike’s okay with the election.’ Like everything’s business as normal.
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An increasingly disturbing feature of American politics is the routine suppression of major news stories that reflect poorly on candidates favored by the Fourth Estate. The most egregious example in recent years occurred in October of 2020 when corporate news outlets and social media platforms colluded to bury a New York Post article on Hunter Biden. Fortunately, some stories just aren’t susceptible to such censorship. Inflation is a case in point. It can’t be hidden from the voters because soaring prices shout the bad news from every grocery store shelf and gas pump in the nation.
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Former U.S. Senator David Perdue made a surprise visit Wednesday to Habersham County Airport, where he criticized social media platforms run by the progressive-dominated tech companies of Silicon Valley for their silencing of conservative voices.
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After about 24 hours of being locked out, The Tennessee Star’s Twitter account has been unlocked, and its full functionality restored.
“After The Tennessee Star reported a factual story on Friday about Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R-TN) signing a bill into law making Ivermectin available over-the-counter, Twitter has locked The Tennessee Star out of its account,” The Star reported Saturday.
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After reporting a factual story about Gov. Bill Lee (R) signing a bill into law making anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin available over-the-counter, Twitter has locked The Tennessee Star out of its account.
The company said that The Star’s reporting might pose a risk to public health, and in response, The Star will not be able to make posts for several hours.
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Twitter suspended Michael Ward, the husband of Arizona Republican Party chair Kelli Ward, Wednesday morning for “multiple, severe violations” according to his wife. She tweeted, “Weird. He’s not a terrorist or a tyrant. He’s a doctor, dad, & veteran. That must be it!”
https://twitter.com/kelliwardaz/status/1519313005174874113
Michael Ward told The Arizona Sun Times, “I want to know whether they’re targeting me because I opposed COVID-19 restrictions, or because I am a conservative physician, or because I’m a retired colonel who opposes the Biden administration.” He believes he was probably singled out because of who he’s married to. He said Twitter first suspended him on Jan. 7, 2021, his first account, @JimmyTheMole01, because he retweeted former President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 protest at the U.S. Capitol. He was never given a warning, temporary suspension, or second chance when he tried to appeal, the account was permanently banned.
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One of the most popular right-wing Twitter accounts Wednesday said that it has been banned from using an online link-sharing service.
“Linktree just deleted my account citing ‘inappropriate use of this service,'” said Twitter account LibsOfTikTok. “When I try to log in it says my account is no longer accessible. Why am I suddenly being censored?”
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Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed New York City attorney Akiva Cohen to the newsmaker line to comment upon the Elon Musk, Twitter buy, next steps, and anti-trust law.
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Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed official guest host Grant Henry in studio for another edition of Grant’s Rants.
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Twitter will no longer sell ads with messaging that contradicts the United Nations’ (UN) scientists, according to a statement from the Silicon Valley tech giant.
“To better serve these conversations, misleading advertisements on Twitter that contradict the scientific consensus on climate change are prohibited, in line with our inappropriate content policy,” the statement says. “We believe that climate denialism shouldn’t be monetized on Twitter, and that misrepresentative ads shouldn’t detract from important conversations about the climate crisis. This approach is informed by authoritative sources, like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Reports.”
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In a move that has sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley, Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk, who became Twitter’s largest shareholder Monday, will now be a member of the company’s board of directors.
“I’m excited to share that we’re appointing [Musk] to our board! Through conversations with Elon in recent weeks, it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board,” Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said Tuesday.
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A mother who was told to “zip it” and then thrown out of a school board meeting while addressing the board’s members has filed a lawsuit against the district, claiming that the board’s rules for public speakers are unconstitutional.
Plaintiff Ashley Ryder is seeking injunctive relief to stop the Big Walnut Local Schools (BWLS) from enforcing its rules at school board meetings.
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Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed Director of Media Relations for GETTR social media, Sonny Joy Nelson to the newsmakers line to describe the new platform and its mission.
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Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed guest host Grant Henry in studio for another edition of Grant’s Rants.
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Amid the controversy over world-famous Spotify podcaster Joe Rogan hosting guest Dr. Robert Malone, credited with inventing mRNA vaccine technology that is used in COVID-19 vaccines, Malone revealed information about a massive conflict of interest.
On an episode of Tucker Carlson Today that aired Wednesday, Malone revealed that the largest stakeholder in Spotify, which has been under pressure to censor Rogan for spreading “misinformation” about COVID-19, is also the largest stakeholder in Moderna, one of the two companies distributing mRNA vaccines for COVID-19.
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China replaced the ending to the 1999 cult classic film “Fight Club” with a message saying the authorities won, BBC News reported.
The true ending of the film depicts the narrator, portrayed by Edward Norton, killing his imaginary alter ego, played by Brad Pitt, before bombs exploded, destroying buildings in the climax of a plot to change society.
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Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna criticized Twitter and Facebook for censoring the New York Post’s story on Hunter Biden, saying the story should not have been blocked.
“I thought it was a mistake for Twitter to take down some of this stuff about Hunter Biden, or Facebook to do that,” Khanna said during an interview with Joe Lonsdale on the American Optimist podcast while promoting his book “Dignity in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work for All of Us.”
The New York Post published a story in October 2020 detailing a meeting between Hunter Biden, then-Vice President Joe Biden and a top executive at Ukrainian gas company Burisma in 2015, relying on data recovered from a laptop reportedly belonging to Hunter. Shortly after the story was published, Twitter blocked users from sharing the link and suspended accounts that attempted to tweet it out.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed official guest host Grant Henry in studio for another edition of Grant’s Rants where he discusses the censorship of Twitter.
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Prominent personalities including podcast host Joe Rogan and Republican Sen. Rand Paul have announced plans to leave major social media platforms amid growing backlash over censorship.
Rogan announced late Sunday that he had started an account on alternative social media site Gettr, posting remarks critical of Twitter on the platform.
“Just in case shit over at Twitter gets even dumber, I’m here now as well,” Rogan wrote. “Rejoice!”
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A prominent doctor who has often challenged government and media narratives about the COVID-19 vaccines has been permanently banned from Twitter.
Dr. Robert Malone played a key role in the invention of the mRNA vaccine, the type of vaccine that is being administered to many Americans in an effort to stave off COVID-19. Malone has often been critical of the use of the vaccines, as well those in media and government who support them.
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This year, for the first time since graduation some two decades ago, I did not donate to either of my alma maters. Like many of you, I have become disillusioned with the illiberalism on many college campuses and could no longer support them with an annual gift. While higher education has historically tipped to the political left, the gap has widened in recent decades. Analyzing data on faculty ideological leanings, the American Enterprise Institute reported that “in less than 30 years the ratio of liberal identifying faculty to conservative faculty had more than doubled to 5.”
At Harvard, where I attended graduate school, the faculty political imbalance is particularly striking. According to a 2021 survey by The Harvard Crimson, the college newspaper, out of 236 faculty replies only 7 people said they are “somewhat” or “very conservative,” while 183 respondents indicated that they are “somewhat” or “very liberal.” A similar problem plagues my undergraduate college, Bowdoin.
The absence of my meager donations won’t matter to the colleges I attended, each of which has billions of dollars in endowment money. But big alumni donors at some leading universities are using their influence to improve free thought and inquiry on college campuses.
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Independent journalist Alex Berenson on Monday announced from his SubStack account, “Unreported Truths,” a lawsuit against Twitter for violating his First Amendment rights.
The lawsuit, which follows the social media giant banning the author from the platform, contends that multiple Twitter officials assured Berenson that he would have access to the platform, only to be kicked off later.
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While there is agreement between large factions of both Republicans and Democrats that social media companies should be liable for certain third-party content hosted on their platforms, the parties differ on what that content should be, and why platforms should be liable in the first place.
Congress appeared no closer to finding common ground following a House Energy and Commerce hearing Wednesday, in which lawmakers considered several bills seeking to reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
“Wednesday’s hearing made clear that Republicans and Democrats have drastically different solutions to hold Big Tech accountable,” Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who serves as Ranking Member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Republicans are fighting for free speech, while Democrats continue to push for more censorship and control. Bipartisanship will not be possible until Democrats agree that we need less censorship, not more.”
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Republican lawmakers are raising concerns that Twitter’s new Chief Executive Parag Agrawal may threaten conservative political speech on the social media platform.
Agrawal, Twitter’s former chief technology officer who was announced as CEO following Jack Dorsey’s decision to step down early Monday, has previously highlighted the perceived threat of online “misinformation,” calling to depart from free speech considerations in favor of other concerns in an interview with MIT Technology Review in November 2020.
“Our role is not to be bound by the First Amendment, but our role is to serve a healthy public conversation and our moves are reflective of things that we believe lead to a healthier public conversation,” Agrawal said. “The kinds of things that we do about this is, focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed.”
Agrawal previously oversaw development efforts on Bluesky, a decentralized social media platform intended to “better control abusive and misleading information.”
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Twitter implemented a new safety initiative Tuesday that has caused confusion among many of its users.
“In addition, you may not share private media, such as images or videos of private individuals, without their consent,” the company said in a blog post. “However, we recognise [sic] that there are instances where users may share images or videos of private individuals, who are not public figures, as part of a newsworthy event or to further public discourse on issues or events of public interest. In such cases, we may allow the media to remain on the platform.”
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In early November, the Chinese (PRC) tennis star Peng Shuai wrote on her blog that she had been aggressed in 2018 by a Communist Party boss and vice-premier, Zhang Gaoli, who made her his concubine. The blog post, on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, was removed in less time than it takes to play a set, 20 minutes.
Peng’s glory days as an athlete were in the mid-teens, when she was the first Chinese tennis player to reach a no. 1 ranking; hers was in doubles. In that format she won Wimbledon 2013 and Roland-Garros 2014, partnering with the Taiwan (Free China) player Hsieh Su-wei (at a time when the Chicoms were offering Hsieh big bucks to defect to their side); Peng was also strong in singles, ranked no. 14.
Peng has not been seen in public or heard from since her blog was censured.
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With the democratization of information, we are witnessing an immensely beneficial development for every American. This development is best recognized by the fascistic attempts of Big Tech, the Pravda media, and the Biden Administration to destroy it.
As many have noted, social media has empowered individuals to pursue their happiness and shape their destinies to an extent unimagined in human history. While many are more familiar with the economic and social aspects of the internet (hence, the term “social media”), it is the political dimension that most frightens the Left.
Given their perpetually failed, morally bankrupt, coercive agenda, the democratization of information is an existential threat for the Left and to its psychotic aim to “fundamentally transform” the most prosperous, powerful, and equitable nation ever known.
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A series of new leaks from Big Tech giant Facebook has revealed even more bias against conservatives from the company’s employees, even to the point of causing internal debates between employees and upper management, according to the New York Post.
The latest leaks come from message board conversations reviewed by the Post, which showed back-and-forth discussions within Facebook about how to deal with conservative news outlets during last year’s race riots by far-left domestic terrorist organizations such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa.
Some employees expressed their desire to completely remove sites such as Breitbart from Facebook’s “News Tab” feature. When one such employee asked a manager about doing so, the manager responded by pointing out that “we saw drops in trust in CNN 2 years ago,” before rhetorically asking “would we take the same approach for them too?”
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Despite former President Donald J. Trump’s Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) announcing plans to become a rival of newly-launched social media site GETTR, the CEO of the latter firm welcomed Trump into the social media space.
“Congratulations to President Trump for re-entering the social media fray! Now Facebook and Twitter will lose even more market share. President Trump has always been a great deal-maker, but we just couldn’t come to terms on a deal,” Miller said in a Wednesday statement. “And get ready for the new platform features GETTR has on the way: live-streaming, GVision short videos and our GETTR Pay payments system capabilities. Exciting new additions that will provide our global customer base an even better user experience. Let the downloads begin!”
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Everyone has a right to their opinion. The question is: does everyone have a right to voice their opinion? Increasingly, in these strange times, it seems that we physicians have the right to voice only certain opinions, when it comes to discussing Covid-19.
Wanting to hit the mute button on physicians who choose to challenge the public health narrative, especially in regard to vaccination for Covid-19, is understandably tempting. We carry a bit more authority than lawyers or statisticians when we share our thoughts about medical matters; and quite a few physicians seem to have little interest in toeing the party line. However, appealing as it might be to silence these voices, succumbing to the temptation of censorship might end up costing our society more than it gains.
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Facebook released its updated Content Distribution Guidelines on Thursday, shedding more light on how the tech giant decides what content it suppresses.
While Facebook has previously provided some details on the types of content that receive reduced distribution in Facebook’s News Feed, the updated guidelines are designed to provide clarity and accessibility, Director of Product Management Anna Stepanov announced in a blog post Thursday.
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School districts, teachers unions, student groups and parents lined up at the Ohio House to testify against two bills that would stop schools from teaching what sponsors called “divisive concepts” in the classroom.
The House State and Local Government Committee heard more than three hours of testimony Wednesday during the third hearing for both House Bill 322 and House Bill 327. Each prohibits teaching concepts that are part of the nationwide critical race theory movement critics say purports the U.S. is a fundamentally racist country.
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On Wednesday, Wisconsin State Representative Shae Sortwell (R-WI-02) and State Senator Roger Roth (R-WI) introduced three pieces of legislation aimed to protect free speech rights of Wisconsinites on social media.
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The National Archives has placed warning labels on its digital display of America’s founding documents, including the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, warning they may contain “harmful language” that could offend viewers’ senses.
The labels come amidst a larger battle over political correctness inside the government’s main historical preservation agency, where new documents surfaced this week showing that about 800 National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) employees from across the country attended a town hall meeting of the Archives’ Task Force on Racism on May 11 and discussed deleting the “charters of freedom” descriptors for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration.
The argument made was that the documents did not “not result in freedoms for everyone” initially, the new memos show.
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The Texas state Senate passed a bill Tuesday that aims to curb perceived political censorship by social media companies.
The bill, introduced in the Texas Senate by state Sen. Bryan Hughes, would prohibit social media platforms from “censoring” users based on their viewpoints. “Censoring” includes actions such as removing content, banning users, demonetizing users, and suppressing posts, according to the bill.
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With national attention riveted over the weekend on two major stories — the frantic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan amid its fall to the Taliban and category 4 Hurricane Ida slamming into the Louisiana coast — Big Tech and woke finance dramatically extended the reach of cancel culture with brazen moves to silence and harass three high-profile voices of political and scientific dissent: independent journalist Alex Berenson, popular conservative news and opinion website The Gateway Pundit, and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
On Saturday, Twitter permanently banned Alex Berenson, who has built a large social media following challenging public health establishment orthodoxy on COVID issues ranging from lockdown to vaccine mandates.
“The account you referenced has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation rules,” a Twitter spokesperson responded to an inquiry from Fox News.
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Facebook is considering creating a commission to advise the tech giant on election-related issues including misinformation, The New York Times reported.
The tech company reportedly contacted several academics and policy experts to draft plans for a commission that will advise Facebook on electoral matters and potentially decide policies related to political misinformation and advertising, several people familiar with the plans told The New York Times. Facebook plans to announce the commission in the next few months to be prepared for the 2022 midterms, the Times reported.
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What do you call a regime that lies constantly, and then admonishes the people when they question the integrity of the regime and its anointed figurehead?
If you ask Joe Biden and his propagandists on cable news, it’s called “democracy.” Anyone who doubts Biden’s legitimacy, they’ve been telling us, is part of the “big lie” and quite possibly a domestic terrorist.
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Facebook has been courting partnerships with religious groups in hopes of becoming their virtual home, the New York Times reported in late July. Experts and religious leaders told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the social media platform’s interest in shaping the future of religious experience should be closely monitored to protect religious freedom.
Though it is unlikely that a virtual religious experience will replace in-person religious services, the Times acknowledged, Facebook’s partnerships with religious groups expose Facebook’s plans to shape the future of the religious experience — as it has done with both political and social life.
“I just want people to know that Facebook is a place where, when they do feel discouraged or depressed or isolated, that they could go to Facebook and they could immediately connect with a group of people that care about them,” Nona Jones, a nondenominational minister and Facebook’s director for global faith partnerships, told the Times.
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Monday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Crom Carmichael in studio to discuss big tech censorship, federal regulations, and how the US Supreme Court will rule in the Trump lawsuit.
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If you’re tired of the pandemic and just want to go back to normal, David Frum at The Atlantic has news for you: It’s all the stupid people who refuse to take the vaccine that are prolonging our COVID misery.
Oh, wait, that’s not it exactly. In actuality, it’s all Trump’s fault. Frum, once a leading voice of the conservative establishment, declares: “Pro-Trump America has decided that vaccine refusal is a statement of identity and a test of loyalty.”
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Twitter permanently suspended several accounts dedicated to documenting the Arizona audit. The social media giant also permanently suspended other similar or affiliated accounts covering the audit or calls for an audit in Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.
The suspended accounts were: @arizonaaudit, @AuditWarRoom, @AuditMichigan, @AuditWisconsin, @AuditNevada, @AuditGeorgia, @Audit_Arizona and @Audit_PA. The latter 7 accounts are associated with an Instagram account, @auditwarroom, that hasn’t been suspended from the Facebook-owned platform. That account notified the public that it joined GETTR, a social media platform created by former President Donald Trump’s aide Jason Miller.
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Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) called on the Biden administration to explain the extent of their collaboration with Big Tech companies to censor individuals on social media.
Blackburn’s letter comes after White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki indicated that the administration has worked with Big Tech to limit “misinformation” regarding COVID-19.
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During a press conference Monday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki dodged addressing whether the White House will reveal which Facebook posts it flags as misinformation.
Psaki said last week that the White House will flag posts deemed vaccine misinformation to Facebook. But the White House press secretary did not address Monday whether the White House will “publicly release information on posts that it considers misinformation on vaccines that it’s asked Facebook to block.”
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In a Thursday press conference, Press Secretary to President Joe Biden admitted that the White House is colluding with Facebook to censor content on the social media platform.
“We are in regular touch with the social media platforms and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff and also members of our COVID-19 team — given as Dr. Murthy conveyed, this is a big issue, of misinformation, specifically on the pandemic,” Psaki reportedly said
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Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Big Tech and First Amendment New York Attorney Akiva Cohen to the newsmakers line to explain the mechanics of Former President Trump’s lawsuit.
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For Big Tech billionaires, these are the best of times, and the worst of times.
Why the best? Because the long arm of social media and online commerce has never reached further and deeper into Americans’ culture, spending habits, lifestyles, and worldview. Likewise, the net worth of these billionaires has risen to undreamed-of heights. COVID was, for tech barons, a blessing in disguise: it trapped Americans indoors, where they could do little else but browse the web, consume digital entertainment, and spend their stimulus dollars on imported Chinese doohickeys. Even as the dreaded virus has retreated, Big Tech has successfully locked in its gains.
Why the worst of times, though? The very rise of Big Tech has portended greater scrutiny. The debasement of Big Tech’s competitors and natural enemies—from brick-and-mortar stores to Trump supporters—has ensured that the drumbeat of criticism of social media companies and online retailers has never been more stridently percussive.
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The founder of CloutHub, a free speech social media network, has responded to former President Donald J. Trump’s class action lawsuit against several Silicon Valley titans, which the forty-fifth president announced Wednesday.
“I am pleased that President Trump is fighting back against Big Tech corporations after enduring months of blatant injustices,” Jeff Brain said in press release. “His lawsuit is based on the infringement of his fundamental free speech rights that powerful companies such as Facebook and Twitter imposed based on their own political bias; a bias that has no place with such important keepers of our national public square online.”
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