Facebook
May 10, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Buzzfeed has a story that is perhaps unintentionally revealing. Facebook documents leaked to that outlet indicate that Facebook is trying to assuage Starbucks’ ire at “hate speech” the company is encountering on the social media platform: Facebook is scrambling to prevent Starbucks from leaving its platform after the world’s largest coffee company said it was dismayed by hateful comments left on its posts about racial and social justice issues. In
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February 8, 2021 — John Hinderaker
One of the major issues of our time is the Left’s attempt to ban conservative speech where it now matters most: on social media platforms. The Left monopolizes social media outlets, and if an upstart competitor rears its head–Parler, say–it is crushed by an obviously-illegal combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade. (See Section 1 of the Sherman Act.) Good luck litigating that for the next ten years while you
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February 3, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is an important guy in more ways than one. As John notes in this nearby post, DeSantis seeks to impose statutory constraints on Big Tech/social media in support of neutral free speech principles. Below is the full video of DeSantis’s press conference announcing the initiative. Looking around online for the details, I see that the Miami Herald reports: The proposed bill, which is still being drafted,
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February 2, 2021 — John Hinderaker
A number of people around the country are working on the problem of censorship of conservative speech by the technology behemoths, especially the social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. For now, it seems clear that federal action is foreclosed. The Democrats have no intention of doing anything to disrupt a situation that is highly favorable to them. So for the foreseeable future, all the action will be at the
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November 30, 2020 — John Hinderaker
That is what my friend Roger Simon says: “Now Is the Time for All Good Men and Women to Get Off Twitter.” Whatever Jack Dorsey and his minions dislike, whatever threatens them, is automatically banned or, at best, temporarily tolerated with some supercilious notation about its supposed wrongheadedness. (And they claim they’re a public facility—like the phone company.) Almost never do they say with any specificity why they are censoring.
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November 17, 2020 — John Hinderaker
Following the election, the social media monopolies did their best to ban discussion of voter fraud, lest confidence in Joe Biden’s “victory” be shaken. Today, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on their platforms’ political biases and influence. I don’t know what to make of Dorsey. He looks like a homeless person and, based on videos I have seen of his
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October 28, 2020 — John Hinderaker
CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google testified today before the Senate Commerce Committee on Big Tech censorship, and its naked support of the Democratic Party. The hearing lasted for nearly four hours. This exchange between Ted Cruz and the apparently homeless Jack Dorsey has been the most discussed moment in the hearing: We may add further clips as they come to our attention. Basically, the Silicon Valley giants are sitting
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October 14, 2020 — John Hinderaker
Today the New York Post published an explosive expose on Joe Biden. Here are some of the highlights: Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company, according to emails obtained by The Post. The never-before-revealed meeting is mentioned
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June 18, 2020 — John Hinderaker
That is an evergreen headline. Here are a couple of instances from today’s news. First, Facebook has pulled Trump campaign ads under its “organized hate” policy. Sounds serious, right? No: the Trump ads were anti-Antifa, and, since Antifa is an organized hate group, you might think Facebook would approve of them. Just kidding. Still, what was the problem? The Trump campaign ads included a red inverted triangle. A Trump campaign
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May 28, 2020 — John Hinderaker
Today President Trump signed an executive order intended to address the problem of liberal bias in the major social media platforms. Reporting on the order has generally been poor. This is some of what it actually says, after a long preamble: Sec. 2. Protections Against Online Censorship. (a) It is the policy of the United States to foster clear ground rules promoting free and open debate on the internet. Prominent
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August 20, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Last year, Facebook hired former senator Jon Kyl and lawyers from Covington and Burling, a prominent D.C. law firm, to look into allegations of bias against conservatives. The Kyl group released its first report today. My impression of the report is that it does a pretty good job of summarizing conservatives’ concerns about the Facebook platform. For example: Hate Organization Designations: Facebook prohibits use of the platform by “terrorist groups
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July 2, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Facebook has issued a second Progress Report on its ongoing “Civil Rights Audit.” The report has special reference to the 2020 election and, to put it mildly, it does not inspire confidence. Facebook’s “civil rights” initiative is based on “interviews with over 90 civil rights organizations.” Throughout the current report, the “civil rights community” is referred to as though it were monolithic and authoritative. I am afraid there is a
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March 31, 2019 — John Hinderaker
In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg called on governments to increase regulation of internet speech. It is easy to understand why Zuckerberg wants governments to tell Facebook what to do. Following regulations will insulate Facebook against liability, and the free speech controversies of recent years have been an unwelcome distraction from Facebook’s remarkably successful business model. Zuckerberg wants government action “in four areas: harmful content,
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March 11, 2019 — John Hinderaker
ZeroHedge is one of the most popular news sites on the internet. Its traffic is, I believe, more than ours. Yet it has been banned by Facebook, the great bluenose of our time: Over the weekend, we were surprised to learn that some readers were prevented by Facebook when attempting to share Zero Hedge articles. Subsequently it emerged that virtually every attempt to share or merely mention an article, including
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December 28, 2018 — John Hinderaker
The anti-conservative bias exhibited by Silicon Valley’s tech giants and its impact on our cultural and political life is a huge topic that we have addressed many times. This post will just note a few recent developments. Tyler O’Neil reports on Facebook’s consideration of dueling bias claims: On Tuesday, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg announced a few results from the “civil rights” audit led by former ACLU lawyer Laura Murphy. That
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November 19, 2018 — John Hinderaker
Our friend Glenn Reynolds has an op-ed in USA Today in which he urges antitrust enforcement actions against the dominant tech firms: “Donald Trump must bust Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google monopolies like Teddy Roosevelt.” Roosevelt built a strong reputation by going after the trusts, huge combinations that placed control of entire industries in the hands of one or a few men. He broke up John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, the
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September 13, 2018 — John Hinderaker
I wrote last night about the leaked Google video that confirms, once and for all, that Google is an arm of the Democratic Party. Now, word emerges that the Department of Justice has invited 24 state attorneys general to meet for the purpose of discussing possible antitrust actions against the dominant technology platforms: On Thursday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that nearly half of the state attorneys general would
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