On Thursday’s episode of “The Andrew Klavan Show,” the host speaks with James O’Keefe about how social media has been quietly censoring conservative and Christian voices, particularly O’Keefe’s revelations about Pinterest’s actions to limit conservative posts. Video and partial transcript below.
James O’Keefe: A whistleblower comes to us inside of a company called Pinterest, which is a big tech company. It’s a 13-billion-dollar company who had a recent IPO. And this is a whistleblower. This is someone who was willing to lose his job. He knew the risks. He gave us secret documents and since I’m on the Daily Wire one of the pieces of information in this document, I have the document in front of me. Internal employees at Pinterest were calling Ben Shapiro a “white supremacist.” And they put Ben Shapiro, the words “Ben” space “Shapiro” space “Islam” or “Muslim”. Any of those combinations of words on what they call an S.T.L. or a sensitive terms list. He shared screenshots of employees working at a high level in the company talking about how they would censor any content mentioning Ben Shapiro.
So, there’s this information. There’s also information that Live Action, the largest pro-life organization, the biggest pro-life media organization, they actually consider them to be “pornography.” And also, other websites; PJ Media, Zero Hedge, all “porn.” So, we reach out for Pinterest to comment on Monday afternoon. And Pinterest scrambles to try to cover this information up and removes Live Action from the porn domain blacklist before we published the story. We published the story. The story blows up. Drudge links to the video, and then Pinterest then places Live Action back on to the porn domain blacklist. And then after that happens Pinterest just bans Live Action. And then what happens is YouTube, which Drudge has just linked to the video of all of these exposés, YouTube bans the video, claiming that we violated a privacy violation of Pinterest and then what happens is Twitter censors us publishing the video. So, YouTube bans the video and then Pinterest informs this young man who blew the whistle that he’s been placed on administrative leave. So, they didn’t actually fire him. … I think the reason why they didn’t fire him is because they know that they have a lawsuit on their hands. If they fire him for blowing the whistle on what has occurred. So, an extraordinary series of events.
Andrew Klavan: That is absolutely amazing. It is absolutely amazing that social media is ganging up on you to keep you from exposing social media from ganging up on conservatives. I mean it’s George Orwell, it really is. They’ve gone … they’ve lost their minds but really not. I mean it’s a strategy, right? They are trying to silence us before the 2020 election. They want Conservatism to (be silence).
James O’Keefe: This is the, his name is Eric Cochran. I mean he is a hero. We just published an interview with him. He did go on the Tucker Carlson show last night. And what’s extraordinary, you listen to this guy Eric, he says I don’t care about … He was making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year working and he just gave it all up. Because he wants to draw out a dozen people like him to do what he did. And if you listen to Eric talk, Eric says this is the watershed moment. He says this is the moment. He says it’s all happening. I’ve been doing this for 10 years. I’ve never had YouTube take down one of my videos. And I covertly film people, I leak documents. That’s what investigative journalists do. But now what’s happening is that the public, the tech companies are putting down the gauntlet and saying no, no this is a bridge too far, you’re throwing the stone in Goliath’s eye and it’s hurting us too greatly. They would never do this to the New York Times. They would never do this to The Washington (Post). Those guys publish secret documents all the time. They publish secret documents into state secrets they publish. I don’t know the documents on you and I that they have.
But that does that’s not what this is about. This is about putting the line in the sand. And this young man has made the extraordinary decision to give it all up. To basically ruin his career for a cause greater than himself. I think that what’s going to happen next is there’s going to be a dozen people like him to blow the whistle. I don’t think big tech is going to be able to stop them all.
Andrew Klavan: Well this is the thing, I mean, first of all just to unpack it just a little bit. What you exposed was they were putting Ben Shapiro but also Lila Rose and her fight against abortion, they put her as a porn site. I mean that’s an amazing thing. So porn sites [are] legitimately banned from Pinterest. And they put her on a porn site. You expose that and they shut you down. I mean it’s amazing.
James O’Keefe: Truth is stranger than fiction. If you wrote, you’re from Hollywood, if you wrote a screenplay about this, the executive producer would throw it in the trash. That’s too ridiculous. That’s too cliché. I know this sounds crazy but, it’s all happening. This is the moment in time, I’m not exaggerating.
Pinterest put pressure on Google. Pinterest put pressure on YouTube corporate and said this is too true. Just like from that movie The Insider. That’s a metaphor for what’s happening because this guy’s an insider. When Al Pacino says the more true it gets the worse it gets. He sits. He talks. He courageously blows the whistle. We published the information in a responsible way. I’m not an opinion guy I’m not a pundit. I just published facts that the public had a right to know and I can’t go to the New York Times, The Washington Post, because those guys hate my guts so much that they put their hatred and their passion for politics and party over the First Amendment. And the only place I have to go is YouTube and YouTube takes me down. And do you see those blue checkmark guys on Twitter giving a crap about this? No. They say off with his head. The Intercept, which is the entire purpose of The Intercept, is to publish secret documents. He’s saying Facebook needs to ban O’Keefe. This is the moment, and this is the moment in time.