Republican Senator Ted Cruz says the secret tool used by the tech industry to censor conservative voices is online service providers, which are systematically “removing infrastructure services that conservative organizations need to operate,” he tells The Daily Wire.
The Texas Republican says this new breed of censorship is “far less visible” to the public than similar actions taken by platforms such as Facebook, but “every bit as problematic.” An investigation carried out by the Senate Commerce Committee identified companies such as Eventbrite and Slack that have withheld their widely used services from conservatives for political reasons.
“This is a strategy, and it’s a strategy they’re deliberately deploying to go after conservatives and silence them,” explained Cruz, whose report was obtained exclusively by The Daily Wire.
Cruz’s investigation honed in on Eventbrite’s treatment of events that were centered around “What is a Woman?”, the documentary by Daily Wire host Matt Walsh. The event company, which controls nearly half of the online event management market, claimed mere screenings of the film violated their Hateful Events Policy, and yanked pages for events across the country from its platform.
Though groups were given only broad statements about why their access to Eventbrite was revoked, Cruz’s committee found that action was taken even though nobody at the company even bothered to watch the film.
“Eventbrite said that its decision to cancel the “What is a Woman?” event was based in a large part on their objection to the film itself,” Cruz said. “But then they couldn’t identify anything with the film that violated its terms of service.”
“They canceled the event without watching the movie,” Cruz explained, calling it “brazen abuse of power” that’s carried out in “an explicitly ideological leftist way to silence conservative voices while not silencing those voices on the left.”
Eventbrite also revoked its services from an event on “Protecting Women’s Sports” that featured Riley Gaines, an outspoken female athlete who speaks out against allowing men to participate in women’s sports. Eventbrite, Cruz discovered, based its decision on social media posts by Gaines, chiefly one in which she stated, “real women … lack a Y chromosome.”
Here’s why Eventbrite canceled seven “What Is a Woman?” events: pic.twitter.com/wFPF7kA0f6
— The Matt Walsh Show (@MattWalshShow) April 23, 2024
Cruz also found that Slack, a communication platform used by companies across the country, revoked access to Libs of TikTok over factual statements it posted to social media that Slack says “incite hatred.” One of the posts from Libs of TikTok cited by Slack stated that Boston Children’s Hospital was “offering gender-affirming hysterectomies for young girls,” which although a statement of fact, generated significant anger towards the hospital.
Slack told the Committee that “what makes [Libs of TikTok] problematic is that Libs of TikTok has a specific audience, and they are taking this information and posting it to that specific audience so that everyone in that audience sees it at the same time.”
“Understand what they’re saying: They’re saying the primary concern is that Libs of TikTok’s posts are read by a conservative audience,” Cruz explained. “They’re not even claiming to be upset with Libs of TikTok’s posts, most of which are retweets of posts from leftists. They’re just saying it’s objectionable that you actually have conservatives reading or watching what you’re putting out.”
Libs of TikTok creator Chaya Raichik said that her team used Slack daily, and that its abrupt removal of services was “very difficult” for the company to deal with. Not only did it need to scramble to find a new way to communicate, but it lost all previous communications — without prior notification, and without any opportunity to appeal.
The report concludes that the termination of service is often disruptive for conservative organizations — when Eventbrite canceled a Stanford University screening of “What Is A Woman?”, 600 students had already registered for tickets to the event. The entire infrastructure for attending the event was built through Eventbrite, and access was revoked just days before it took place, derailing it.
Matt Walsh, whose documentary film was at the center of Eventbrite’s actions, says Cruz’s investigation confirms long-held suspicions from conservatives.
“Conservatives have long suspected they’re being deplatformed for fraudulent, politically motivated reasons,” Walsh said on Thursday. “This congressional investigation confirms it.”
EXCLUSIVE: A lengthy congressional investigation led by @SenTedCruz just exposed the deranged lies of several online services that deplatformed @libsoftiktok, @Riley_Gaines_, and me. 🧵
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) April 23, 2024
Cruz’s report also found that this sort of action is only being levied against conservative groups. While Libs of TikTok no longer has access to Slack’s services, the committee found that there is still an active Slack account for groups such as Antifa and Crimethinc, a group that puts out step-by-step guides for how to commit crimes.
And Eventbrite since canceling the events for “What Is A Woman?” and Gaines has platformed events celebrating the Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel.
“Eventbrite is perfectly happy to host them — they see no conflict with their ‘hateful events policy’ having such rabid anti-Semitic, frankly, pro-violence content,” Cruz said. “But on the other hand, Matt Walsh is clearly beyond the pale.”