Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has been on a crusade to force social media platforms like Facebook to crack down on political ads, claiming that lenient ad policies, like the one Facebook employs, allow political campaigns to lie about key issues, creating confusion.
But her concerns seem to end at social media political ads she disagrees with. When Twitter announced a crackdown on political ads &#8212; like the one Warren is pushing for Facebook &#8212; Warren lashed out at the social media platform for censoring important content because Twitter&#8217;s definition of &#8220;politics&#8221; includes contentious issues like &#8220;climate change.&#8221;
&#8220;Twitter&#8217;s new ad policy will allow fossil fuel companies to buy ads defending themselves and spreading misleading info—but won&#8217;t allow organizations fighting the climate crisis to buy ads holding those companies accountable. We need accountability,&#8221; the Democratic presidential contender wailed in a tweet.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Twitter&#39;s new ad policy will allow fossil fuel companies to buy ads defending themselves and spreading misleading info—but won&#39;t allow organizations fighting the climate crisis to buy ads holding those companies accountable. We need accountability. <a href="https://t.co/B9RtX7hC5g">https://t.co/B9RtX7hC5g</a>
&mdash; Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) <a href="https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1191814840731480064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 5, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Just last month, Warren, of course, made the opposite argument against Facebook, buying an intentionally misleading political ad on the social network to demonstrate that Facebook does not adquately police purchased content.
The ad started with a claim that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had endorsed Donald Trump and ended with the Massachusetts Democrat revealing that her ad had been deliberately fabricated to demonstrate what could get by Facebook&#8217;s ad censors.
&#8220;You&#8217;re probably shocked,&#8221; the ad read. &#8220;And you might be thinking, &#8216;how could this possibly be true?&#8217; Well, it&#8217;s not.&#8221;
We intentionally made a Facebook ad with false claims and submitted it to Facebook&#8217;s ad platform to see if it&#8217;d be approved,&#8221; Warren later tweeted. &#8220;It got approved quickly.&#8221;
She then accused Facebook of prioritizing profits over quality and honesty, eventually even moaning that the social network was &#8220;taking money to promote lies.&#8221;
Facebook responded that, &#8220;FCC doesn&#8217;t want broadcast companies censoring candidates&#8217; speech&#8221; and &#8220;[w]e agree it&#8217;s better to let voters &#8212; not companies &#8212; decide.&#8221;
Twitter seems to be taking the opposite view, announcing last week that it would be policing all political content &#8212; including issue-based content &#8212; on its platform in an effort to curb the spread of misinformation.
&#8220;We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought,&#8221; Twitter&#8217;s CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted last Wednesday. &#8220;A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money.&#8221;
&#8220;Political advertising,&#8221; Jack went on, includes &#8220;issue ads.&#8221;
&#8220;We considered stopping only candidate ads, but issue ads present a way to circumvent. Additionally, it isn’t fair for everyone but candidates to buy ads for issues they want to push. So we&#8217;re stopping these too.&#8221;
That includes, per Twitter&#8217;s policies:
<blockquote>1/ Ads that refer to an election or a candidate, or
2/ Ads that advocate for or against legislative issues of national importance (such as: climate change, healthcare, immigration, national security, taxes)</blockquote>
Essentially, Dorsey&#8217;s rationale is the same as Warren&#8217;s: social networks should take responsibility for misinformation being spread on their network by actively policing content. The only way to do that is either to allow all political and issue content or to ban all political or issue content. Facebook chose the former and earned Warren&#8217;s ire. Twitter chose the latter and, well, also earned Warren&#8217;s ire.
The only difference with Twitter&#8217;s policy is, of course, that it actively prevents Warren&#8217;s allies from purchasing ads promoting their particular political ideas &#8212; and she certainly doesn&#8217;t like that.
Unfortunately for speech purists, it seems Warren&#8217;s concerns struck a chord with the leftist mob on Twitter and Dorsey was backed into a corner. Responding to Warren, he said that the rules were not yet official and that he and his team were taking their concerns under advisement: “We haven’t announced our new rules yet. They come out 11/15. Taking all this into consideration.&#8221;

Elizabeth Warren

Irony: Elizabeth Warren Slams Twitter&#8217;s Political Ad Ban Because It Covers Climate Change

Facebook

Twitter

Last week, Katherine Miller at BuzzFeed published an essay on how the 2010s &#8220;broke our sense of time.&#8221; On the same day, Georgetown University released a survey showing the average voter thinks we are &#8220;two-thirds of the way to the edge of a civil war.&#8221;
I have no idea what the &#8220;edge&#8221; of a civil war is, but I do think we are at a moment of serious discontent in the country, and I think it is directly related to the point of Miller&#8217;s essay about algorithms reordering our lives. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the rest of the internet now show us content in a timeline designed to increase our interaction and our clicks. Their algorithms have taken us out of chronology.
With the algorithm, what is old can be new again. Things that happened a week ago appear repeatedly in our timelines as if they are fresh and new. People now visit places that they see repeatedly on Instagram because others are going there. People get mad at news because news is designed to get them mad. Hate clicks generate revenue for news sites. Outrage holds your attention.
The algorithm feeds the fire. Teen suicide rates have climbed since the introduction of the iPhone — the moment our national addiction to screens began. People used the blame the 24-hour news cycle. Now we have the algorithmic news cycle, where news from two years ago can show up like it is new to drive anxiety and outrage. Kids on Instagram and Snapchat can now, over and over again, relive the images of their friends at the parties they didn&#8217;t even know were happening, driving their depression. Their parents can see the selectively edited footage of a news event designed to drive their outrage and then continue seeing it over and over as others share it. None of it slips by unseen.
Social media companies share some of the blame for taking us out of chronology and putting us into algorithms designed not to show us new, interesting stuff but to keep us using sites and services — to keep us clicking.
Add to all of this the decreasing tolerance for Grace, and the situation is spiraling chaotically toward violence. Each of us is now defined by the worst thing we have done, which is helpfully recirculated by others on social media. There is no need to improve or grow up because we will never be credited with doing so when one person with a social media audience can tie us back to the worst thing we have done. College athletes are now routinely destroyed for things they did as teenagers. Guys raising money for charity are blackballed by decade-old tweets from when they were going through puberty. The algorithm amplifies the damage.
There is, of course, a cure for this, but it is one no one has incentive to provide when everyone and everything is now anchored in the digital. Get offline and into your community. Scripture says to seek the welfare of the city in which you are in exile, and there you will find your welfare. But too few are doing that because the city has no algorithm. It has something worse — physical human beings. We would all rather stay online in digital communities we have created, filled with usernames and faces that look and think like us and share our interests and feelings.
Unplugging, however, may be our only hope. Our Facebook friend is not going to bring us dinner when we are sick or water our flowers when we are gone. The actual human being next door just might. That requires we get to know them, appreciate them despite their differences and dare to live a chronological existence with them, where yesterday stays yesterday and tomorrow is something we can look forward to together. Tomorrow has an actual sunrise that we can appreciate with a physical smile on a physical face in a physical place unique to us — not shared by thousands in an Instagram algorithm and hashtag.
To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Social media.

ERICKSON: The Coming Algorithm Civil War

social media

In an op-ed for <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/468404-mark-zuckerberg-is-right-jack-dorsey-is-wrong">The Hill</a> published Thursday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) praised Facebook&#8217;s Mark Zuckerberg and slammed Twitter&#8217;s Jack Dorsey for their diverging approaches to political speech following the social media giants&#8217; recent policy announcements.
&#8220;For those who care about free speech, the last couple weeks saw two major developments from two people who have enormous influence over our public discourse,&#8221; Cruz writes. &#8220;First, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whom I have previously criticized, gave an important address in defense of free speech. In it, he explained Facebook&#8217;s new policy that they would not censor political speech, but would instead allow the marketplace of ideas, the back-and-forth of political debate, to resolve public policy disputes.&#8221;
Cruz is referencing in part Zuckerberg&#8217;s widely covered <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/mark-zuckerberg-defends-free-speech-amid-political-blowback-i-believe-in-people">speech</a> at Georgetown University two weeks ago in which he came out strongly in defense of free speech. &#8220;We can continue to stand for free expression, understanding its messiness, but believing that the long journey towards greater progress requires confronting ideas that challenge us or we can decide the cost is simply too great,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I’m here today because I believe we must continue to stand for free expression.&#8221;
Zuckerberg also made clear in front of Congress the next week that his platform will not be policing political ads.
Dorsey, however, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-twitter-makes-major-move-regarding-speech-from-politicians">announced</a> on Twitter this week that his platform will take a far different approach: it will &#8220;stop all political advertising on Twitter.&#8221;
&#8220;We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally,&#8221; Dorsey announced Wednesday. &#8220;We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons a political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money.&#8221;
The developments, Cruz writes, &#8220;come at a time when Big Tech companies, from Facebook and Twitter to YouTube and Google, have established a pattern of arbitrarily silencing voices – overwhelming conservative voices – with whom they disagree.&#8221;
Cruz notes that leftwing politicians and media influencers have condemned Zuckerberg&#8217;s defense of free speech and praised Dorsey&#8217;s new political ad ban, &#8220;urging Facebook and Google to follow suit and jump on board the censorship train by banning political ads as well.&#8221;
Cruz goes on to lay out why banning ads would be &#8220;profoundly harmful,&#8221; including that doing so &#8220;only stands to benefit two groups: incumbent politicians and the mainstream media,&#8221; both of whom have &#8220;huge megaphone[s]&#8221; for spreading their messages.
Not only does a Twitter-like ban give incumbents and the media massive advantage, it effectively suppresses the voice of the average citizen by preventing groups like &#8220;the Sierra Club, the NRA, Planned Parenthood, AIPAC, or a totally new not-for-profit group trying to advocate for a particular idea&#8221; from reaching people.
Cruz additionally argues that Dorsey&#8217;s ban &#8220;only further empowers Silicon Valley billionaires, who already have a stronghold on defining what is truthful or acceptable speech, to now define what is and what is not &#8216;political.'&#8221;
&#8220;It’s up to them to determine where to draw the line – and they won’t stop here,&#8221; the Texas senator warns. &#8220;Banning ads is just the beginning.&#8221; (<a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/468404-mark-zuckerberg-is-right-jack-dorsey-is-wrong">Read Cruz&#8217;s op-ed here</a>.)
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/klavan-the-big-silence-the-left-wages-war-on-free-speech">KLAVAN: The Big Silence: The Left Wages War On Free Speech</a>

Zuckerberg Dorsey

Cruz: Facebook&#8217;s Zuckerberg Is Right, Twitter&#8217;s Dorsey Is Wrong

Free Speech

Jack Dorsey

Mark Zuckerberg

Ted Cruz

The very first political video I ever made was entitled “Shut Up.” That’s ten years ago, though it seems like more. The vid is still up on YouTube.
“The left here has been making the ‘shut up’ argument at least since the seventies, when it became clear that all their other arguments had failed,” says my younger and incredibly handsome self. “Since it was the only argument remaining to them, they had to invent different ways to say it. If you pointed out that their weakness allowed the murderous tyranny of Communism to expand, for instance, well, you were a McCarthyite. Shut up. If you proved their leniency toward criminals turned our cities into cesspools, you were a fascist. Shut up. When you pointed out that their welfare policies destroyed black families and created a social disaster of vast proportions, you were a racist, a sexist, uncivil, worse than Hitler, all just different ways of saying: shut up.”
It is sad to see how relentlessly the left has adhered to this approach. With the collapse of their utopia, the Soviet Union, with socialism a drag on life everywhere (yes, including Scandinavia), with leftist Europe sinking under the weight of unrestrained immigration and lack of assimilation and with the presidency of light worker savior Barack Obama an economic and foreign policy failure, leftists, rather than change their minds and their policies, have instead committed to creating a Big Silence meant to hide the truth from all of us, perhaps even from themselves.
This may have once seemed possible given the left’s near monopoly over the means of communication in this country. Hollywood, the news media, the academy — all are nearly wholly populated by leftists. But as the internet and social media began to eat holes in this firewall of disinformation, the left began to fear the truth might reach the people. It was then that their commitment to free speech waned to nothing.
“Free Speech is Killing Us,” headlines a recent story in the leftist New York Times by leftist New Yorker writer Andrew Marantz.
“In the early years of this decade, back when people associated social media with Barack Obama or the Arab Spring, Twitter executives referred to their company as ‘the free-speech wing of the free-speech party.’ Sticks and stones and assault rifles could hurt us, but the internet was surely only a force for progress. No one believes that anymore,” Marantz writes.
Translating that from Leftist into Truth, it means: “Free speech was okay when people said things we like, but not now that people are saying other things.” No one seems to have explained to Marantz that that’s the way freedom feels to everyone: great for you, horrific for anyone you disagree with.
Fearful of Donald Trump’s talent for communicating with Americans without the hate-filled filter of the press, the Left and their media have now launched wars on Facebook and Twitter, trying to cut off the flow of information they dislike. Democratic congressmen grilled Mark Zuckerberg on his failure to censor politicians while, suspiciously in concert, 22 separate news outlets launched attacks on Zuck and his site. Twitter, which was exposed by Project Veritas for shadow banning conservative speech, has announced it will no longer allow political or issue ads. Whose voice do you think they’re trying to silence?
Appallingly, journalists themselves have signed on to this assault on the most basic of American values. In an article in the latest City Journal entitled “Journalists Against Free Speech,” John Tierney describes how journalists from the Atlantic, the Times, Huffpo and other venues have endorsed the version of leftist shut-uppery known as Cancel Culture — though they are shocked when anyone tries to use it on them.
And, according to a recent survey by Campaign for Free Speech, these tactics may be working. Fifty-one percent of Americans want to rewrite the First Amendment to exclude “hate speech.”
Of course, you only have to think logically for half a minute to start asking yourself questions. 1) Who decides the definition of hate speech? 2) Why do they want to? 3) What are they trying to hide?
If you answered: 1) Leftists, 2) Because they want power and 3) The fact that leftism leads to slavery&#8230;
&#8230;shut up.

Protesters

KLAVAN: The Big Silence: The Left Wages War On Free Speech

First Amendment

New York Times

On Thursday, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, a devout liberal who wrote the script for the film “The Social Network,” which portrayed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as a hard-hearted villain only interested in himself, attacked Zuckerberg in an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/opinion/aaron-sorkin-mark-zuckerberg-facebook.html?smtyp=cur&amp;smid=tw-nytopinion">op-ed for The New York Times</a>, titled: “Aaron Sorkin: An Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook isn’t defending free speech, it’s assaulting truth.”
Sorkin wrote, “It was hard not to feel the irony while I was reading excerpts from your recent speech at Georgetown University, in which you defended — on free speech grounds — Facebook’s practice of posting demonstrably false ads from political candidates.”
Sorkin huffed, “I admire your deep belief in free speech. I get a lot of use out of the First Amendment. Most important, it’s a bedrock of our democracy and it needs to be kept strong … Last year, over 40 percent of Americans said they got news from Facebook. Of course the problem could be solved by those people going to a different news source, or you could decide to make Facebook a reliable source of public information.”
Zuckerberg responded to Sorkin by using Sorkin’s own words from the screenplay for “The American President”:
<blockquote>America isn&#8217;t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, &#8217;cause it&#8217;s gonna put up a fight. It&#8217;s gonna say: You want free speech? Let&#8217;s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who&#8217;s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can&#8217;t just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.</blockquote>
In 2014, <a href="https://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/the-social-network/241132/mark-zuckerberg-the-social-network-was-kind-of-hurtful">speaking at a Q&amp;A</a> at Facebook&#8217;s headquarters, Zuckerberg said of &#8220;The Social Network,&#8221; for which Sorkin won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, &#8220;I haven&#8217;t spent a lot of time thinking about that movie in a while. I kind of blocked that one out &#8230; I think the reality is that writing code and then building a product and building a company is not a glamorous enough thing to make a movie about, so you can imagine that a lot of this stuff they had to embellish or make up. They went out of their way in the movie to try to get some interesting details correct like the design of the office, but on the overarching plot &#8211; they just kind of made up a bunch of stuff that I found kind of hurtful &#8230; there were pretty glaring things that were just made up about the movie that made it pretty hard to take seriously.&#8221;
When he won the Oscar for &#8220;The Social Network,&#8221; Sorkin <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VP5mFHl_lY">stated</a>, &#8220;This movie is going to be a source of pride for me every day for the rest of my life.&#8217;
Social media noted Zuckerberg’s takedown of Sorkin:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Oh dear. Flattened. <a href="https://t.co/0EXr1b1C78">https://t.co/0EXr1b1C78</a>
&mdash; Josh Holmes (@HolmesJosh) <a href="https://twitter.com/HolmesJosh/status/1189985929987014657?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 31, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Never mess with a human algorithm.
Zuckerberg just slaughtered him in broad daylight. <a href="https://t.co/khQ9tpTMWs">https://t.co/khQ9tpTMWs</a>
&mdash; Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) <a href="https://twitter.com/NumbersMuncher/status/1189978113746321408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 31, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
There was more:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Icing on the cake is 3 pieces of misinformation in Sorkin&#39;s piece in the New York Times they had to issue corrections for <a href="https://t.co/Sipk9WB5Ec">pic.twitter.com/Sipk9WB5Ec</a>
&mdash; Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) <a href="https://twitter.com/ComfortablySmug/status/1189979403192811521?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 31, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The big First Amendment case involving Larry Flynt, Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, was about political satire, not pornography. <a href="https://t.co/6x8QvawYPa">https://t.co/6x8QvawYPa</a> <a href="https://t.co/JbCSxNZLAt">pic.twitter.com/JbCSxNZLAt</a>
&mdash; Bill Hammond (@NYHammond) <a href="https://twitter.com/NYHammond/status/1189981368295579649?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 31, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
H/T <a href="https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2019/10/31/9-1-1-id-like-to-report-a-murder-mark-zuckerberg-absolutely-shreds-aaron-sorkin-for-claiming-hes-assaulting-truth-by-defending-free-speech/">Twitchy</a>

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg And News Corp CEO Robert Thomson Debut Facebook News

Aaron Sorkin, Who Ripped Mark Zuckerberg In ‘The Social Network,’ Tries Again. Zuckerberg Uses Sorkin&#8217;s Own Words Against Him.

Aaron Sorkin

After Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-twitter-makes-major-move-regarding-speech-from-politicians">announced on Wednesday</a> that Twitter would no longer publish political ads, implicitly attacking Facebook, which still accepts political ads and had announced its earnings the same day, by writing, “We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought … This isn’t about free expression. This is about paying for reach,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg fired back defending free speech.
Zuckerberg wrote on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=Mark%20Zuckerberg&amp;epa=SEARCH_BOX">Facebook</a>: &#8220;I believe strongly — and I believe that history supports — that free expression has been important for driving progress and building more inclusive societies around the world,&#8221; as well as &#8220;I think we also need to be careful about adopting more and more rules that restrict the way that people can speak and what they can say.&#8221; He also stated, &#8220;In a democracy, I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s right for private companies to censor politicians or the news.&#8221;
Some excerpts from Zuckerberg&#8217;s post below:
<blockquote>Today I want to focus on talking about principles. Because from a business perspective, it might be easier for us to choose a different path than the one we&#8217;re taking. So I want to make sure everyone is clear about what we stand for, and why we&#8217;re making some of the decisions we&#8217;re making.
I gave a speech a couple weeks ago about the importance of standing for voice and free expression. I believe strongly — and I believe that history supports — that free expression has been important for driving progress and building more inclusive societies around the world, that at times of social tension there has often been urge to pull back on free expression, and that we will be best served over the long term by resisting this urge and defending free expression.
… But while we work hard to remove content that can cause real danger, I think we also need to be careful about adopting more and more rules that restrict the way that people can speak and what they can say.
Right now, the content debate is about political ads. Should we block political ads with false statements? Should we block all political ads? Google, YouTube and most internet platforms run these same ads, most cable networks run these same ads, and of course national broadcasters are required by law to run them by FCC regulations. I think there are good reasons for this. In a democracy, I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s right for private companies to censor politicians or the news. And although I&#8217;ve considered whether we should not carry these ads in the past, and I’ll continue to do so, on balance so far I&#8217;ve thought we should continue …
Some people accuse us of allowing this speech because they think all we care about is making money. That&#8217;s wrong. I can assure you, from a business perspective, the controversy this creates far outweighs the very small percent of our business that these political ads make up. We estimate these ads from politicians will be less than 0.5% of our revenue next year …
Other people say this policy is a part of a broader pattern of us building a system that incentivizes inflammatory content to fuel our business. Again, to the contrary, I think we&#8217;ve done more than any of the other major internet platforms to try to build positive incentives into our systems. We don&#8217;t let any of our News Feed or Instagram Feed teams set goals around increasing time spent on our services. We rank feeds to encourage meaningful social interactions — helping people connect with friends, family and their communities. We have real people come in and tell us what content they saw that was most meaningful to them and sparked valuable discussions, and then we build systems to try to surface that kind of content. We&#8217;ve taken many steps over the years to fight clickbait and polarization, and now we&#8217;re even testing removing like counts in Instagram and Facebook …
Finally, some people say this is just all a cynical political calculation and that we&#8217;re acting in a way we don&#8217;t believe because we&#8217;re just trying to appease conservatives. That&#8217;s wrong too. We face a lot of criticism from both progressives and conservatives. Frankly, if our goal were trying to make either side happy, then we&#8217;re not doing a very good job because I&#8217;m pretty sure everyone is frustrated with us.
There&#8217;s a lot at stake here. We are at a cross-roads not only in our own country, but in the future of the global internet as well. China is building its own internet and media ecosystem that’s focused on very different values. As these systems compete, the question of which nation&#8217;s values will determine what speech is allowed for decades to come really puts into perspective the issues we face today. Because while we may disagree on exactly where to draw the line on specific issues, we at least can disagree. That&#8217;s what free expression is about.
Voice and expression have been important for progress throughout history. They&#8217;ve been important in the fight for democracy worldwide. And I believe that voice and free expression are an important part of the path forward today, and that&#8217;s why our company will continue standing for these principles.</blockquote>
&nbsp;

Twitter&#8217;s Dorsey Bans Political Ads, Tweaks Facebook. Zuckerberg Responds By Defending Free Speech.

This past week, the House of Representatives descended into parody, which is hard for it to do. Most members of Congress long ago decided to become parodies of politicians. Now the entire institution is a parody of itself.
The first extraordinary moment was the least noticed. On Oct. 23, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the House Financial Services Committee. This is where I should make a customary disclosure that this past year, Facebook served as a sponsor for my annual Resurgent Gathering.
There to talk about Libra, a cryptocurrency Facebook intends to create with private sector partners, Zuckerberg instead received a spanking from Democrats upset with his lack of knowledge about how many gay people work for him. One member of Congress demanded to know why Zuckerberg did not know how many women, people of color and gay people worked at outside law firms that work for Facebook. Another wanted to know how many black people use Facebook and was outraged when Zuckerberg said Facebook did not track people by race. It is bad to track people by the color of their skin but also bad not to.
Things took a further bizarre turn when members of Congress asked Zuckerberg why they were allowed to lie on Facebook. Zuckerberg said they should not but he was not going to be the hall monitor stopping them. It is really extraordinary that members of Congress want Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire CEO of a private company, to block these members of Congress from communicating with their constituents.
Zuckerberg&#8217;s position is that a great many things are subjective; what one person views as a lie, another views as truth. He does not want his company to be the arbiter of the issue. If one person believes boys can become girls — which many view as true these days — and someone else says this is not biologically possible, why should Zuckerberg step in? Likewise, if a Democrat says a Republican voted for something he or she did not vote for, why should Zuckerberg ban the ad instead of simply letting the world see the Democrat is a liar?
It is a truly remarkable turn of events that members of Congress want a private corporation to protect the American public from their own politicians. Perhaps the politicians should censor themselves and be loud and vocal about what they believe are their opponents&#8217; lies instead of having Mark Zuckerberg play teacher on the schoolhouse&#8217;s playground.
The other extraordinary scene played out the same day as a group of Republican congressmen stormed the secure room where Democrats and Republicans were meeting behind closed doors to hear testimony about the impeachment. The Republicans want the matter brought out into the public. While I agree with them, there is precedent for this to happen behind closed doors — including their own Benghazi depositions and the initial impeachment inquiry of Richard Nixon, which met behind closed doors for four months before opening up to the public in a formal process.
What was so extraordinary is that about half the Republicans who stormed the room claiming they wanted to know what was happening were Republicans already entitled to be in the room. It raises a question: If these Republicans are so willing to storm the room to disrupt the proceedings, why are they not willing to leak the supposedly exculpatory testimonies from the witnesses?
We should not presume these people are fully respectful of the process. After all, many of them leaked like sieves during the closed-door Benghazi matter. Why were they so willing to leak to damage Hillary Clinton back then but so unwilling to leak exculpatory information to protect President Donald Trump now?
Republicans are right that the process is partisan and flawed. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is a partisan hack who should not be allowed in charge of such a serious investigation. But process arguments will not help. Either the President did demand Ukrainians investigate Joe Biden in order to get money or he did not. Making this about process suggests the Republicans have no real defense to the President&#8217;s behavior.
To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Mark Zuckerberg.

ERICKSON: Two Extraordinary Moments In Congress

Congress

Donald Trump

Impeachment

On Thursday’s episode of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” The Daily Wire editor-in-chief talks about Mark Zuckerberg’s congressional testimony regarding Facebook’s proposed cryptocurrency, Libra. Video and partial transcript below: 
So Maxine Waters questioned Zuckerberg, and she asked specifically about whether Zuckerberg was putting out misinformation. AOC did the same thing, [saying] are you willing to put out campaign ads that have overt lies in them? Zuckerberg is like, Well, not if they&#8217;re suppressing votes, right. I mean, that has national impact, but it&#8217;s not our job to evaluate for our readers true and false [statements] coming from prominent politicians. That&#8217;s their job, like more information is better. 
[But] Maxine Waters can’t handle it because Maxine Waters is not a logical human being. 
<blockquote>ZUCKERBERG: Facebook itself actually does not, it does not fact-check. What we do is, we have feedback that that people in our community don&#8217;t want to see viral hoaxes or —
WATERS: So let me be clear, you do no fact checking on any ads. Is that correct? 
ZUCKERBERG: Chairwoman, what we do is we work with a set of independent fact checkers who —
WATERS: Somebody fact-checks on ads. You contract with someone to do that, is that right? 
ZUCKERBERG: Chairwoman, yes. 
WATERS: And tell me, who is it that they fact-check on? </blockquote>
I mean, she just saying nonsensical questions. She&#8217;s conflating everything right there. The policy of Facebook is that when politicians put out ads, they do not fact-check the ads [in order to take them] down, because they feel the fact checkers are then going to fact-check those ads when it comes to people putting out direct attacks on people that are not politicians. 
<iframe title="The Poop-Flinging Begins | The Ben Shapiro Show Ep. 882" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vp3LlrVqc14?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
When it comes to political speech, in other words, Facebook takes a pretty broad view, supposedly. When it comes to an advertiser who is advertising a product and they’re slandering somebody, then Facebook won&#8217;t put that up. That seems fairly clear. But these people don&#8217;t understand, even like the basics of how Facebook works. Why? Because they just decided that Big Tech is the bad guy unless they can control big tech, like listen to what they actually want. 
Here&#8217;s some of the dumb — those were the more intelligent questions, believe it or not. You ready for this one? Here’s Al Green, Representative Al Green &#8230; asking how many LGBT people work on the [cryptocurrency] Libra. What? What now? That&#8217;s like saying how many gay people work at the United States Mint. Like what does that have to do with anything? Like, would it make the U.S. dollar less legitimate if there are fewer than 3% of the people who work on the U.S. dollar are gay? Here&#8217;s Green being a complete moron:
<blockquote>GREEN: One would assume that you would know who heads these corporations that are going to be running this global company? How many of them are minorities, Mr. Zuckerberg? 
ZUCKERBERG: Congressman, I do not know off the top of my head. 
GREEN: Are there any members of the LGBTQ-plus community associated with this association, Mr. Zuckerberg? </blockquote>
What? Okay stop, How many transgender people are working on Libra? Like you&#8217;re getting called in from Congress, I feel like Congress may have overstepped its boundaries just a little bit. And listen, I don’t trust Zuckerberg, and I don’t trust anybody — listen, I don’t trust anybody in Big Tech to keep to their promises, but Zuckerberg has at least articulated a standard. 
You think I trust Al Green, who is questioning whether Libra should be able to go forward based on how many people who believe they&#8217;re a member of the opposite sex are working on the tech for Libra? It&#8217;s insanity. You want those people in charge of the country? 
<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ben-shapiro-show/id1047335260">Listen to full episodes of “The Ben Shapiro Show” on iTunes. </a>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-ben-shapiro-show">Watch “The Ben Shapiro Show” on-demand!</a>

Mark Zuckerberg And Maxine Waters

SHAPIRO: Maxine Waters And Al Green Spout Nonsense At Mark Zuckerberg

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Maxine Waters

Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and other Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee were slammed online on Wednesday over their &#8220;arrogant,&#8221; &#8220;inaccurate,&#8221; and &#8220;embarrassing&#8221; attacks on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg appeared before the committee for over six hours to answer questions about Facebook&#8217;s proposed cryptocurrency, Libra.
&#8220;Anybody who believes the Democrats are angry at Facebook because they want more free speech should take a look at this,&#8221; Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1187230110060957696">commented</a> on the hearing. &#8220;Democrats are angry at Facebook because they want less free speech. They simply want more Democratic control of the means of informational distribution.&#8221;
Rep. Al Green (D-TX) pressed Zuckerberg about the representation that certain intersectional groups have within the company&#8217;s Libra project.
After asking how many women and how many minorities worked on the project, Green asked Zuckerberg: “Are there any members of the LGBTQ+ community associated with this association, Mr. Zuckerberg?”
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/RepAlGreen?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RepAlGreen</a> is incredulous Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t know how many staffers working on Libra are LGBT <a href="https://t.co/K6AJXFIZlp">pic.twitter.com/K6AJXFIZlp</a>
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1187033479395061761?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
Senior RealClearInvestigations writer Mark Hemingway <a href="https://twitter.com/Heminator/status/1187058429812264962">commented</a> on Greens&#8217; remarks, tweeting: &#8220;Gotta love it when bosses make a habit of brushing up on their employees&#8217; sex lives. Really shows you care.&#8221;
&#8220;Is it legal to collect this information?&#8221; Reason staff editor Liz Wolf <a href="https://twitter.com/lizzywol/status/1187046714294853634">tweeted</a>. &#8220;Is it in any way relevant to the employee&#8217;s ability to do their job well? JFC, people.&#8221;
During another portion of questioning, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) suggested, without evidence, that Zuckerberg had &#8220;ruined the lives of many [African-Americans].&#8221;
&#8220;Do you know what percentage of African Americans are on Facebook, in comparison to majority folks?&#8221; Beatty pressed. &#8220;Do you know what the percentages are?&#8221;
Zuckerberg responded: &#8220;I don&#8217;t because we don&#8217;t collect the races of people.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Democrat Rep. Joyce Beatty (OH) gets nasty with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: “You have ruined the lives of many [African-Americans]”
What on earth is she talking about?
This is insane <a href="https://t.co/ugViEELGRO">pic.twitter.com/ugViEELGRO</a>
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1187067044799246336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
&#8220;Holy, this lady almost makes AOC look competent,&#8221; Dave Rubin <a href="https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/1187155562393243648">commented</a>. &#8220;I actually feel bad for Zuckerberg. That’s how totally ridiculous these congresspeople are.&#8221;
During another embarrassing portion of the hearing, far-left Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) attacked Zuckerberg over the fact that some people in the world do not have a lot of money.
Pressley, like many of her Democrat cohorts, repeatedly pressed Zuckerberg on questions that he was unlikely to know the answers to and then cut him off before he could offer any real response to their questions.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/RepPressley?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RepPressley</a> attacks Zuckerberg, says Libra won’t be useful for people with “virtually no money” <a href="https://t.co/eF4Ad5wW9W">pic.twitter.com/eF4Ad5wW9W</a>
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1187116317486305280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
The most cringeworthy portion of the hearing belonged to Ocasio-Cortez, whose arrogance and desire for censoring her opponents was on full display.
Ocasio-Cortez suggested that she wanted to take advantage of the fact that Facebook tries to not censor political speech from politicians by intentionally lying in her campaign ads, specifically wanting to falsely claim that Republicans supported her <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/green-new-deal-would-cost-93-trillion-or-600g-per-household-study-says">$93 trillion</a> Green New Deal.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) gets nasty with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
AOC&#8217;s arrogance here is absolutely embarrassing <a href="https://t.co/gVTURgvzlk">pic.twitter.com/gVTURgvzlk</a>
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1187104024337629184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
Ocasio-Cortez then leveled bogus attacks against The Daily Caller, a conservative publication that has been critical of Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s often flawed ideas and has often called out her false statements and highlighted corruption that involves her.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AOC</a> attacks Zuckerberg for the <a href="https://twitter.com/DailyCaller?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DailyCaller</a> having a role in fact checking. She says the news outlet “has ties to white supremacists.” <a href="https://t.co/wRe74ixjZP">pic.twitter.com/wRe74ixjZP</a>
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1187090234145759242?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
Ocasio-Cortez claimed that The Daily Caller “has ties to white supremacists,” a claim that drew quick response from the leadership at The Daily Caller.
&#8220;Those accusations are rich coming from the leader of the most openly anti-Semitic freshman Congress in modern American history,&#8221; Daily Caller Editor-in-Chief Geoffrey Ingersoll told The Daily Wire. &#8220;Ocasio-Cortez herself employed a staffer who <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/aocs-chief-of-staff-worships-a-servant-of-nazism-and-imperial-japan">lionized Nazis collaborators</a>. Maybe she should spend more time cleaning her room and making her bed before she goes to work.&#8221;
&#8220;Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez’s call for censorship is typical coming from a party hellbent on annihilating opposing views, in this case one of the only groups of journalists aggressively reporting on her,&#8221; Ingersoll added.
In a tweet, The Daily Caller wrote: &#8220;Ooh did our reporting on her campaign finance shenanigans get under her skin?&#8221;
The tweet linked to a <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/04/ocasio-cortez-justice-democrats/">report</a> by investigative reporter Andrew Kerr titled, &#8220;Ocasio-Cortez And Her Chief Of Staff ‘Could Be Facing Jail Time’ If Their Control Over PAC Was Intentionally Hidden, Former FEC Commissioner Says.&#8221;
The Daily Caller issued a statement on Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s remarks from publisher Neil Patel.
&#8220;Our reporting has directly contributed to putting four members of the &#8216;alt-right&#8217; in prison and sending two more on the run, at great personal risk to our reporters on the ground,&#8221; Patel wrote. &#8220;And as a minority-owned and minority-run news company with a diverse staff — including many African-American, Jewish, Asian, and other minority employees — any allegation that our company is in league with white supremacy is offensive.&#8221;
&#8220;We have denounced white supremacy in the past and are happy to do so again,&#8221; Patel continued. &#8220;We share nothing with them and they aren&#8217;t welcome at our company. For a sitting member of Congress to knowingly repeat such spurious allegations — especially during these polarized, violent times — is not just despicable, it endangers our staff.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AOC</a>’s statement is dangerous on a fundamental level, not just because it is inaccurate and damaging.
I have a diverse staff — in politics, race, and creed — and when lunatics roaming the streets think its okay to get violent, this kind of allegation puts my reporters at risk. <a href="https://t.co/W3tNY7Ivkz">https://t.co/W3tNY7Ivkz</a>
— Geoffrey Ingersoll (@GPIngersoll) <a href="https://twitter.com/GPIngersoll/status/1187179990636519425?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 24, 2019</a></blockquote>
Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s attacks on Zuckerberg predictably earned the strongest negative reaction online.
Dave Rubin <a href="https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/1187137659140890624">tweeted</a>: &#8220;She’s absolutely awful. Zuckerberg tries to calmly explain that allowing people to decide for themselves is sometimes what’s right. That’s foreign to progressive groupthink.&#8221;
Tim Pool <a href="https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/1187140327922130945">tweeted</a>: &#8220;AOC just proved exactly why Mark Zuckerberg is right to not police truthfulness of political speech Poynter runs the fact checking approval for Facebook, she is wrong and is smearing the Daily Caller Should Facebook ban AOC from saying this on FB?&#8221;
Guy Benson <a href="https://twitter.com/guypbenson/status/1187134342700687360">tweeted</a>: &#8220;Can confirm: White supremacy was not joked about, made light of, espoused, or even mentioned at the &#8216;far right&#8217; / Zuckerberg dinner party I attended. What a performance she put on.&#8221;
Allie Beth Stuckey <a href="https://twitter.com/conservmillen/status/1187113825860046848">tweeted</a>: &#8220;My gosh. @AOC tries very hard to seem fierce and operates solely out of a desire for viral clips. These questions are not at all interesting or clever, and she is cringefully arrogant.&#8221;

Ocasio-Cortez, Democrats Skewered After Embarrassing Attacks On Zuckerberg

The Daily Caller

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gave a defiant speech on Thursday in which he highlighted the importance of free speech in response to critics&#8217; demands for heightened content auditing amid the 2020 presidential election cycle.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve focused on building services to do two things: give people voice and bring people together,&#8221; Zuckerberg said while addressing a crowd at Georgetown University. &#8220;These two simple ideas — voice and inclusion — go hand in hand.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;ve seen this throughout history, even if it doesn&#8217;t feel that way today. More people being able to share their perspectives has always been necessary to build a more inclusive society,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;And our mutual commitment to each other — that we hold each others&#8217; right to express our views and be heard above our own desire to always get the outcomes we want — is how we make progress together.&#8221;
Zuckerberg&#8217;s remarks come as the tech executive has been facing blowback for how it handles falsehoods published on the social network. Facebook announced in late-September that the site would refrain from fact-checking or moderating politicians&#8217; speech.
Democrats have been especially vocal in their opposition to the approach; they have taken particular issue with Facebook&#8217;s decision not to censor an ad from President Donald Trump&#8217;s re-election campaign that accused former Vice President Joe Biden of using foreign aid as a bargaining chip to force the removal of a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating a company of which his son was a board member.
&#8220;People having the power to express themselves at scale is a new kind of force in the world — a Fifth Estate alongside the other power structures in our society,&#8221; Zuckerberg said. &#8220;People no longer have to rely on traditional gatekeepers in politics or media to make their voices heard, and that has important consequences.&#8221;
&#8220;I understand the concerns that people have about how tech platforms have centralized power, but I actually believe the much bigger story is how much these platforms have decentralized power by putting it directly into people&#8217;s hands,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;It&#8217;s part of this amazing expansion of voice that we&#8217;ve experienced through law, culture and now technology as well.&#8221;
Zuckerberg noted that individuals are increasingly falling subject to the &#8220;dangerous&#8221; belief that accomplishing their own idealized political outcome is more important than allowing their fellow Americans to have their own voice.
Highlighting examples throughout history that illustrates both how the escalation in voices accelerates unification and the censorship of voices hinders progress, Zuckerberg invoked Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as events such as the American founding and Civil Rights movement, the worldwide spread of democracy, and the Vietnam War protests.
&#8220;So, giving people a voice and broader inclusion go hand in hand, and the trend has been towards greater voice over time,&#8221; the Facebook CEO said. &#8220;But there&#8217;s also a counter-trend, which is that in times of social turmoil, our impulse is often to pull back on free expression because we want the progress that comes from free expression, but we don&#8217;t want the tension.&#8221;
Set off by recent events such as the 2008 financial crisis, the boost in globalization, and even worldwide migration, Zuckerberg argued that Americans are again facing a social tension heightening impulses to pull back on free expression.
&#8220;In the face of these tensions, once again a popular impulse is to pull back from free expression. We&#8217;re at another cross-roads,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We can continue to stand for free expression, understanding its messiness, but believing that the long journey towards greater progress requires confronting ideas that challenge us or we can decide the cost is simply too great. I’m here today because I believe we must continue to stand for free expression.&#8221;
He further expressed his pride in representing a company which values the American tradition of free expression, but noted that free speech is also not absolute, especially when that freedom infringes on another individual&#8217;s rights. He also examined some of the difficulties in determining what should constitute acceptable speech on the social media platform.
&#8220;The future depends on all of us. Whether you like Facebook or not, we need to recognize what is at stake and come together to stand for free expression at this critical moment,&#8221; Zuckerberg said. &#8220;I believe in giving people a voice because, at the end of the day, I believe in people.&#8221;
&#8220;And as long as enough of us keep fighting for this, I believe that more people&#8217;s voices will eventually help us work through these issues together and write a new chapter in our history — where from all of our individual voices and perspectives, we can bring the world closer together,&#8221; he added.

Mark Zuckerberg Talks Free Expression At Georgetown University

Mark Zuckerberg Defends Free Speech Amid Political Blowback: &#8216;I Believe In People&#8217;

Constitution

On Wednesday, the &#8220;Internet Accountability Project,&#8221; a nonprofit taking aim at the &#8220;bad acts&#8221; of Big Tech, officially launched.
&#8220;Our Mission,&#8221; the organization&#8217;s <a href="https://www.theiap.org/">site</a> reads, &#8220;is to lend a conservative voice to the calls for federal and state governments to rein in Big Tech before it is too late.&#8221;
With rising anxieties about tech industry giants like Google and Facebook violating privacy standards and engaging in documented cases of bias against conservatives, the nonprofit seeks to hold such companies accountable.
&#8220;We are conservatives who are alarmed by the role Big Tech plays in our society. We are concerned by the political and economic harms Big Tech platforms such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon are inflicting on Americans,&#8221; IAP says. &#8220;These harms include negative content, conservative bias, privacy violations, anticompetitive conduct, and employee abuses. We formed Internet Accountability Project in order to speak out against Big Tech before it is too late.&#8221;
The advocacy group is headed by heavy-hitting conservative players Mike Davis and Rachel Bovard. Leading the charge, Davis, as previously outlined by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47431/article-iii-project-launches-promising-pro-trump-josh-hammer">The Daily Wire</a>, is the founder of judicial advocacy group <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47431/article-iii-project-launches-promising-pro-trump-josh-hammer">A3P</a>; he <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelrdavis/">clerked</a> for Neil Gorsuch on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court and recently served as chief nominations counsel to former Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) during the bitter confirmation hearings of now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Bovard, who serves as IAP&#8217;s senior advisor, is no slouch, either. The 35-year-old already has over a decade of experience fighting for conservative policy in Washington under her belt. She was named one of National Journal&#8217;s Most Influential Women in Washington under 35 in 2013 and has served in both the House and Senate in various roles, including legislative director for Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).
&#8220;We just launched the Internet Accountability Project today, and we are blown away by the overwhelming support we are receiving, especially among conservatives,&#8221; Davis told The Daily Wire on Wednesday. &#8220;We represent hardworking Americans who are fed up with the Big Tech bullies — like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter — and their &#8216;bad acts,&#8217; including profiting from human-sex trafficking, revenge-porn, the opioid epidemic and drug addiction, terrorism, and other forms of human misery, along with engaging in egregious business practices like snooping, spying, political bias against conservatives, employee abuses, and anticompetitive conduct.&#8221;
In a press release sent to The Daily Wire, Davis further blasted Big Tech. &#8220;Enough is enough,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s time to re-boot Big Tech, upgrade and reformat the sweetheart laws that protect them, and enforce the antitrust, consumer-and employee-protection, and similar laws already on the books.&#8221;
&#8220;We are pleased that 50 state attorneys general, along with a bipartisan group of lawmakers on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, have taken the bold and courageous steps of investigating Big Tech&#8217;s &#8216;bad acts,&#8217; and we will support other government officials in their efforts to investigate and hold Big Tech accountable,&#8221; he added.
Bovard stressed to The Daily Wire that there must be accountability, and soon.
&#8220;When it comes to Big Tech, we are currently dealing with huge and unaccountable corporations, awash in billions of dollars, who own the private data of hundreds of millions of Americans, and control our cultural and political conversation in unprecedented ways,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Our public policy has simply not kept pace with where we now find ourselves. The ability to have an honest conversation about what Big Tech is doing to our cultural development, our ability to engage with one another, as well as its impact on the next generation, is well within the domain of policy makers. We are excited to work toward facilitating this necessary conversation.&#8221;
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Bovard emphasized that it&#8217;s &#8220;critical to protect innovation and ingenuity in the tech space, but to do so mindfully.&#8221;
&#8220;Big Tech should not be allowed to become the arbiters of communication in America without input from citizens and policy makers,&#8221; the statement reads. &#8220;It is important for those on the Right to begin discussing whether our public policy has kept pace with Big Tech, who now owns our data, much of our privacy, and in many cases, is pulling the levers of our political communication. IAP is here to help facilitate that conversation.&#8221;
In June, President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48899/watch-trump-slams-tech-giants-bias-censorship-hank-berrien">accused</a> social media giants like Google and Twitter of attempting to &#8220;rig&#8221; the 2016 presidential election and suggested the companies be sued.
&#8220;I tell you what, they should be sued, because what&#8217;s happening with the bias — and now you see it, with that executive yesterday from Google, the hatred for the Republicans. It&#8217;s not even like, &#8216;Gee, let&#8217;s lean Democrat.&#8217; The hatred! And actually, you know, I heard that all during my election. It&#8217;s hard that I won. They were swamping us with negative stuff,&#8221; the president posted to Twitter.
As reported by The Daily Wire, Attorney General William Barr spearheaded probing efforts into such big tech platforms for potential antitrust violations about a month later.
&#8220;Without the discipline of meaningful market-based competition, digital platforms may act in ways that are not responsive to consumer demands. The department&#8217;s antitrust review will explore these important issues,&#8221; Justice Department antitrust chief Makan Delrahim said at the time.
According to a press release from the IAP, initial conservative partners active in the group&#8217;s fight against Big Tech include Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI), Human Events, and Publius Lex, which is led by attorney Harmeet Dhillon. &#8220;IAP&#8217;s team also includes top surrogates who have served in the White House, Justice Department, Congress, and conservative movement,&#8221; the release noted.

Google

Conservative Heavy Hitters Launch Nonprofit Taking Aim At Big Tech

Amazon

<a href="https://twitter.com/benjaminpenn">Ben Penn</a> of <a href="https://muckrack.com/ben-penn/bio">Bloomberg</a> is a Very Intrepid Journalist™. Ben Penn, you see, is committed to Very Intrepid Journalism™-ing. And because Ben Penn is a Very Intrepid Journalist™ committed to Very Intrepid Journalism™-ing, he decided to launch today a Very Intrepid Piece Of Journalism™ at <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/trump-labor-aide-quits-after-anti-semitic-facebook-posts-surface">Bloomberg Law</a> that regales the reader with the courageous tale of Penn&#8217;s exhumation of a recent U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) political appointee&#8217;s three-year-old &#8220;anti-Semitic&#8221; Facebook post. The oh-so-valiant unearthing of that hitherto buried Facebook post led, you see, to the DOL appointee&#8217;s resignation after less than a month on the job. Surely, somewhere deep in the bowels of the Swamp, Very Intrepid Journalist™ Ben Penn is now celebrating his day of Very Intrepid Journalism™-ing.
The careful reader — or, rather, any reader with more than one functioning brain cell — will note that the preceding paragraph utilizes a literary device commonly referred to as sarcasm. We here at The Daily Wire are <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50382/walsh-i-disavow-daily-wire-matt-walsh">rather familiar</a> with that literary <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47579/last-season-democracy-not-good-others-satire-andrew-klavan">device</a>. But Very Intrepid Journalist™ Ben Penn seems less familiar with the literay device of sarcasm than <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43796/hammer-bernie-sanders-entire-worldview-grotesquely-josh-hammer">communist</a> Bernie Sanders is with the economic concept of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45542/watch-hammer-fox-friends-start-educating-american-daily-wire">supply and demand</a>.
Leif Olson, a years-long personal friend of your humble columnist and a principled conservative who had recently uprooted his family from the Lone Star State to the nation&#8217;s capital in order to humbly serve in the Trump administration, was forced to resign last Friday after Penn flagged for DOL a transparently sarcastic Facebook post of Olson&#8217;s dating back to the much-ballyhooed August 2016 Paul Ryan/Paul Nehlen Republican primary race in Wisconsin&#8217;s 1st Congressional District. Let us consider Olson&#8217;s underlying satirical post, as well as the leading subsequent sardonic comment that Very Intrepid Journalist™ Ben Penn deemed sufficient grist for purposes of nabbing a cheap scalp.
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Paul Nehlen, the reader may recall, was a vile <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/paul-nehlen/551312/">alt-right anti-Semite</a> whose failed insurgent bid to supplant Paul Ryan was vociferously backed by Breitbart and other nationalist populist figures. Prior to his later being banned outright from Twitter in 2018 due to serial peddling of Jew-hatred, Nehlen became notorious for promoting on the platform a <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/white-supremacist-paul-nehlen-loses-gop-house-primary-but-garners-11-of-vote/">list of Jewish journalistic conspiracists</a> against him. I would know because, along with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro and other prominent Jewish journalists such as CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper, I personally appeared on Nehlen&#8217;s list.
Paul Ryan ended up walloping Paul Nehlen in the August 2016 GOP primary for Wisconsin&#8217;s 1st Congressional District by an utterly embarrassing margin of 84% – 16%. Cue Olson, then a civilian, who took to his personal Facebook page to mock Nehlen and his buffoonish alt-right supporters in emphatically sarcastic fashion. As Philip Klein <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/shameful-trump-labor-appointee-forced-to-resign-after-bloomberg-portrays-sarcastic-facebook-post-as-anti-semitic">observes</a> today at the Washington Examiner, it ought to take a complete lack of human sentience to miss the obvious sarcasm here: &#8220;If the over-the-top language isn&#8217;t a tip off, it&#8217;s a fairly dead giveaway that Olson refers to Ryan having &#8216;suffered a massive, historic, emasculating 70-point victory.'&#8221; And as Yair Rosenberg <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/290615/how-the-media-turned-a-trump-appointee-who-mocked-alt-right-anti-semites-into-an-anti-semite">details</a> today at Tablet, Very Intrepid Journalist™ Ben Penn &#8220;selectively cropped&#8221; out of his calumnious screed &#8220;relevant omitted portions&#8221; and &#8220;essential context&#8221; that makes it entirely clear that Olson — who I personally know to have a very dry sense of humor — was being sarcastic. In response to one Facebook commenter&#8217;s opining that the Ryan/Nehlen race was &#8220;[n]ot Breitbart&#8217;s best day,&#8221; Olson chimed in: &#8220;Not breitbart-dot-com&#8217;s best series of months, I think you mean.&#8221;
Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.
That is the entire &#8220;story&#8221; here. And for this, Very Intrepid Journalist™ Ben Penn managed to besmirch a good (if perhaps too sarcastic) man as an ignominious Jew-hater — something he manifestly is not. And what of the Labor Department? The cowardly apparatchiks at DOL who folded like a cheap suit and capitulated to Very Intrepid Journalist™ Ben Penn&#8217;s disgraceful attempt to claim a political appointee&#8217;s scalp ought to be brought to task and disciplined. This saga does not merely reveal Ben Penn as an opportunistic blunderbuss; it also reveals a truly shameful look for DOL. Conservatives ought to be up in arms that DOL, a prominent department of the Trump administration, is so unwilling to defend its own appointees against manufactured smear campaigns.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Related: What the heck happened at <a href="https://twitter.com/USDOL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@USDOL</a> to accept this resignation? Push back against such obviously disingenuous hatchet jobs from journalistic bottom-feeders and defend your political appointees.
Terrible look for the Trump administration.
— Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1168879269344362496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 3, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
But don&#8217;t take the outrage just from me or from <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1168893306471931910">Ben</a>. Take it instead from some of the most prominent blue checkmark left-leaning commentators on Twitter:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Ryan is right about this &#8212; this is actually the rarest of things, a case where someone is unfairly fired for remarks that weren&#8217;t bigoted but interpreted as such. <a href="https://t.co/ilzlBE4ihU">https://t.co/ilzlBE4ihU</a>
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) <a href="https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/1168907822161158145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 3, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">I know little about Leif Olson and probably strongly disagree with his policy goals, but it seems highly dubious to report his sarcasm as actual antisemitism—again, the context makes it overwhelmingly clear that he was ridiculing antisemites.
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) <a href="https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1168881139433398272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 3, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Trump Labor official Leif Olson has resigned due to a putatively anti-Semitic Facebook post. But if you read the post, it appears to be mocking anti-Semitic conspiracy theories: <a href="https://t.co/C9UPvhKbzz">https://t.co/C9UPvhKbzz</a>
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) <a href="https://twitter.com/jonathanchait/status/1168860047029538822?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 3, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">It’s pretty clear based on the context that he was being sarcastic.
— Jane Coaston (@cjane87) <a href="https://twitter.com/cjane87/status/1168878615632629760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 3, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Anti-Semitism in America is, harrowingly, <a href="https://forward.com/opinion/430477/no-one-cares-about-attacks-against-the-orthodox-because-youve-been/">very much</a> on the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44424/hammer-stark-choice-facing-jewish-democrats-josh-hammer">rise</a>. It is, increasingly, a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46528/hammer-jews-simply-must-arm-themselves-now-josh-hammer">dangerous time</a> to be a Jew — especially a more public-facing Orthodox Jew — in these United States. As a proud Jew and Zionist, I take anti-Semitism as seriously as anyone else. But it is affirmatively harmful to the cause of raising awareness of actual, genuine rises in anti-Semitic rhetoric and violence when tendentious muckrakers like Very Intrepid Journalist™ Ben Penn embark on rogue crusades to smear innocent men as Jew-haters for the sake of claiming the scalp of a political opponent. Penn, via his Very Intrepid Journalism™-ing, has tragically undermined the cause of extirpating Jew-hatred in America. Ditto the <a href="https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-shame-of-the-anti-defamation-league/">farcical leftist leadership</a> of the Anti-Defamation League, whose spokesperson was quoted by Penn as referring to Olson&#8217;s comments as &#8220;clearly anti-Semitic&#8221; before the organization, tail between its legs, <a href="https://twitter.com/Yair_Rosenberg/status/1168960242765484032">apparently came around to feeling contrite and expressed a willingness to retract</a> such a mendacity.
There are no actors who escape from this saga looking clean. Shame on Ben Penn. Shame on Ben Penn&#8217;s editors at Bloomberg. Shame on the U.S. Department of Labor. Shame on the Anti-Defamation League. Shame, indeed, on all those actors who are complicit in the false maligning of an upstanding man and the concomitant harm that such maligning has wrought upon the cause of hunting down and excising real, genuine Jew-hatred in America.
DOL must rehire Leif Olson — and it ought to do so as soon as humanly possible. Indeed, if anyone ought to be fired as a result of this imbroglio, it ought to be Very Intrepid Journalist™ Ben Penn.

Cyber Attacks

HAMMER: DISGRACEFUL: Reporter Files Ridiculous Hit Piece Against Trump Department Of Labor Appointee. Administration Dumps Him.

Anti-Semitism

Bloomberg News

Media Bias

Paul Nehlen

Paul Ryan

Trump Administration

In a positive move, Facebook, which has been heavily criticized for its perceived anti-conservative bias, is taking steps to address the issue after former Arizona GOP Senator Jon Kyl led a team examining many aspects of Facebook that conservatives considered problematic.
In an <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-conservatives-dont-trust-facebook-11566309603?mod=searchresults&amp;page=1&amp;pos=1">op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal</a>, Kyl acknowleged that Facebook itself had asked him to conduct a survey of conservatives to find what their problems were with Facebook. Kyl stated, “Facebook placed no restrictions on how I could conduct the work. My team at the law firm Covington &amp; Burling LLP began conducting interviews in May 2018. We cast a wide net to include as many aspects of conservatism as possible – from organizations focused on Christian values or protecting free expression to those focused on tax policy and small government.”
Kyl noted that last August he shared his the concerns of conservatives with Facebook; those concerns he placed into “six buckets”: content distribution and algorithms, which included the concern that Facebook’s algorithms were prejudiced against conservatives; content policies, which conservatives felt targeted them because they included standards banning “hate speech,” which could be a highly subjective perspective; content enforcement, which conservatives suspected might be influenced by the biases of Facebook employees; ad policies, by which Facebook required advertisers to register as “political” organizations if they wanted to post ads, which might jeopardize conservative organizations’ status as nonprofits; ad enforcement, which might inhibit conservative ads because of the approval process, and workforce viewpoint diversity, which pointed to the perceived lack of viewpoint diversity among Facebook’s workforce and senior management.
Kyl noted that Facebook has implemented some changes already to address their perceived bias, including the formation of an oversight board “to hear appeals of some more-difficult content-removal decisions”; creating transparency tools that will enlighten users why certain content appears on their news feeds; allowing page managers “to see when their content has been removed for violating community standards, or when distribution of a post has been reduced because a fact-checker gave it a ‘false’ rating”; hiring four more employees to respond to organizations troubled by Facebook’s content decisions; renaming its ads library, and changing the policy that heretofore had banned images of patients with medical tubes as “shocking and sensational content.” Kyl noted, “This will make it easier to promote certain pro-life ads.”
Nick Clegg, VP of Global Affairs and Communications, <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/08/update-on-potential-anti-conservative-bias/">stated</a>, “We know we need to take these concerns seriously and adjust course if our policies are in fact limiting expression in an unintended way … This is the first stage of an ongoing process and Senator Kyl and his team will report again in a few months’ time … regardless of one’s own political views, this is about whether we apply our own policies fairly to all sides, and whether those policies begin with an understanding of how core groups of users express their beliefs.”
Clegg concluded, “I would like to express my gratitude to Senator Kyl and his team for all the work they have done so far on this crucial, if sensitive, issue – and I look forward to working with him and with colleagues across Facebook to continue to examine, and where necessary adjust, our own policies and practices in the future.”

Facebook Takes Positive Steps To Address Complaints Of Anti-Conservative Bias

The White House is preparing a possible executive order revolving around the claim that social media companies purvey an anti-conservative bias, according to <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/07/white-house-tech-censorship-1639051">Politico.</a>
Politico claimed that a White House official stated, “If the internet is going to be presented as this egalitarian platform and most of Twitter is liberal cesspools of venom, then at least the president wants some fairness in the system. But look, we also think that social media plays a vital role. They have a vital role and an increasing responsibility to the culture that has helped make them so profitable and so prominent.&#8221; The official added, “They have a role, if not a responsibility, to monitor the content on their sites to ensure that people aren’t threatened with violence or worse, and at the same time to provide a platform that protects and cherishes freedom and free speech, but at the same time does not allow it to descend into a platform for hate.”
Another White House official reputedly told Politico, &#8220;The President announced at this month’s social media summit that we were going to address this and the administration is exploring all policy solutions.”
Politico noted, “One potential approach could involve using the government’s leverage over federal contractors, a tactic the Obama administration used to advance LGBT rights. A <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/obama-signs-lgbt-protection-federal-workers-contractors-109174">2014 executive order</a> prohibited federal contractors from discriminating against workers on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.”
In late July, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-to-open-broad-new-antitrust-review-of-big-tech-companies-11563914235?tesla=y&amp;mod=e2tw">The Wall Street Journal</a> reported that the Justice Department had launched an anti-trust review of technology firms including Facebook, Google, and Apple. The Journal wrote, “The review is geared toward examining the practices of online platforms that dominate internet search, social media and retail services, the department said.” Attorney General William Barr stated, “I don’t think big is necessarily bad, but I think a lot of people wonder how such huge behemoths that now exist in Silicon Valley have taken shape under the nose of the antitrust enforcers. You can win that place in the marketplace without violating the antitrust laws, but I want to find out more about that dynamic.”
In June, President Trump tweeted, “Twitter should let the banned Conservative Voices back onto their platform, without restriction. It’s called Freedom of Speech, remember. You are making a Giant Mistake!”
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Twitter should let the banned Conservative Voices back onto their platform, without restriction. It’s called Freedom of Speech, remember. You are making a Giant Mistake!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1137702218835136517?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
In late June, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48940/twitter-will-add-warnings-politicians-tweets-emily-zanotti">The Daily Wire</a> reported, “Social media platform Twitter announced on Thursday that it will be rolling out a new program to ‘label’ certain politicians&#8217; ‘vitriolic’ tweets, allowing those lawmakers to stay on the site, but warning users to remain skeptical of their content.”
Richard Hanania, a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia University, <a href="https://quillette.com/2019/02/12/it-isnt-your-imagination-twitter-treats-conservatives-more-harshly-than-liberals/">noted</a> in February of Twitter, “Of 22 prominent, politically active individuals who are known to have been suspended since 2005 and who expressed a preference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, 21 supported Donald Trump … Twitter debuted in 2006. Yet I could not find a case of the company suspending or banning a prominent person before May 2015.” He concluded, “It is unthinkable that we would allow a telephone or electricity company to prevent those on one side of the political aisle from using its services. Why would we allow social media companies to do the same?”

twitter_gi.jpg

White House Drafting Exec Order Dealing With Social Media Anti-Conservative Bias, Report Says

Conservative satirical site Babylon Bee is getting serious about self-described &#8220;fact-checking&#8221; site Snopes&#8217; ongoing &#8220;smear&#8221; campaign against them, which took a &#8220;disturbing&#8221; step last week in a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49908/fact-check-snopes-biased-read-fact-check-erica-james-barrett">largely fact-free</a> &#8220;fact check&#8221; that went out of its way to attempt to portray the Babylon Bee as deliberately attempting to mislead readers into believing their stories are factual rather than satirical. In an <a href="https://mailchi.mp/babylonbee/reparations-for-everyone-83635">announcement</a> to its readers this week, the Babylon Bee revealed that Snopes&#8217; actions are egregious enough that the Bee has gotten its lawyers involved, and they&#8217;re not kidding around.
&#8220;Last week, Snopes fact-checked us again,&#8221; the Bee told its readers Monday (h/t <a href="https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2019/07/30/no-joke-babylon-bee-sics-lawyers-snopes-fact-checks/">Ed Morrissey</a>). &#8220;We&#8217;re pretty used to that. But this time, instead of merely rating the article &#8216;false,&#8217; they questioned whether our work qualifies as satire, and even went so far as to suggest that we were deliberately deceiving our readers. Basically, they treated us as a source of intentionally misleading fake news, rather than as the legitimate, well-known satire publication that we are. This is a big deal.&#8221;
The reason it&#8217;s a &#8220;big deal,&#8221; the site goes on to explain, is that Snopes has been given significant power over how platforms — particularly Facebook, for which Snopes has served as one of its &#8220;fake news&#8221; monitors — handle posts:
<blockquote>As you know, fake news—which is distinguished from satire by its intent to mislead—was widely considered a serious issue in the last election cycle. As a result, social media networks like Facebook began partnering with fact-checkers to try and limit the distribution of fake news on their platforms. Snopes was one of them. At one point, a piece of ours was rated &#8220;false&#8221; by Snopes, prompting Facebook to threaten us with limitations and demonetization. We made a stink about this, and after some media attention shed light on the problem, Facebook apologized for their handling of the matter and admitted that satire is not the same as fake news.
We came out on top last time, but this latest smear from Snopes is both dishonest and disconcerting. We have no choice but to take it very seriously. For better or worse, the media, the public, and social networks all look to Snopes for authoritative answers. By lumping us in with fake news and questioning whether we really qualify as satire, Snopes appears to be actively engaged in an effort to discredit and deplatform us. While we wish it wasn&#8217;t necessary, we have retained a law firm to represent us in this matter.</blockquote>
As <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/49908/fact-check-snopes-biased-read-fact-check-erica-james-barrett">The Daily Wire</a> highlighted last week, Snopes&#8217; &#8220;fact check&#8221; of the Bee&#8217;s recent obviously satirical post on the Erica Thomas &#8220;hate crime&#8221; allegation framed the Bee&#8217;s posts as deliberate &#8220;ruses,&#8221; accused them of &#8220;fool[ing]&#8221; readers, and questioned if their work should qualify as &#8220;satire.&#8221; (Snopes also conveniently left out many publicly available facts about the Thomas case that undermined the Democrat&#8217;s claims.) A few excerpts from Snopes&#8217; &#8220;fact check&#8221; smearing the Bee — passages that have since been edited out:
<blockquote>We&#8217;re not sure if fanning the flames of controversy and muddying the details of a news story classify an article as &#8220;satire.&#8221;
While this real-world incident stirred up a good amount of online anger, it wasn&#8217;t quite outrageous enough for the entertainment website Babylon Bee. In an apparent attempt to maximize the online indignation, this website published a fictionalized version of the story, changing the location to Chick-fil-A, a fast-food restaurant known for its CEO&#8217;s opposition to same-sex marriage [&#8230;]
The Babylon Bee has managed to fool readers with its brand of satire in the past.</blockquote>
In a tweet thread, Bee founder and editor Adam Ford slammed the &#8220;fact-check&#8221; for its &#8220;disturbing&#8221; attempt to smear his site (first post below, click on tweet to read entire thread):
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">Thread:
So <a href="https://twitter.com/snopes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@snopes</a> fact-checked <a href="https://twitter.com/TheBabylonBee?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TheBabylonBee</a> again. But this time it&#8217;s particularly egregious and, well, kind of disturbing. And I&#8217;d like to talk about it.
Pack a lunch cuz this&#8217;ll be a long one.
First off, here&#8217;s their ridiculous article: <a href="https://t.co/SBugStUnfq">https://t.co/SBugStUnfq</a>
— Adam Ford (@Adam4d) <a href="https://twitter.com/Adam4d/status/1154465670660329472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 25, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
After coming under fire, Snopes edited out the most egregious language in its &#8220;fact-check&#8221; and added an <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/georgia-lawmaker-go-back-claim/">editor&#8217;s note</a>, which puts the blame on readers having supposedly &#8220;interpreted&#8221; their wording incorrectly:
<blockquote>Editors’ Note: Some readers interpreted wording in a previous version of this fact check as imputing deceptive intent on the part of Babylon Bee in its original satirical piece about Georgia state Rep. Erica Thomas, and that was not the editors’ aim. To address any confusion, we have revised some of the wording mostly for tone and clarity. We are in the process of pioneering industry standards for how the fact-checking industry should best address humor and satire”.</blockquote>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49908/fact-check-snopes-biased-read-fact-check-erica-james-barrett">FACT CHECK: Is Snopes Biased? Read This ‘Fact Check’ On Erica Thomas Story And Judge For Yourself.</a>

Babylon Bee Gets Lawyers Involved After Snopes ‘Smear’; Snopes Edits ‘Fact Check’

Babylon Bee

Snopes

Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) filed a federal lawsuit on Thursday that seeks at least $50 million from Google. In the suit, Gabbard alleges that the tech giant infringed on her free speech after it suspended her campaign&#8217;s advertising account in the aftermath of the first Democrat presidential debate.
&#8220;The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in a federal court in Los Angeles, is believed to be the first time a presidential candidate has sued a major technology firm,&#8221; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/technology/tulsi-gabbard-sues-google.html">The New York Times</a> reported. &#8220;Tulsi Now Inc., the campaign committee for Ms. Gabbard, said Google suspended the campaign’s advertising account for six hours on June 27 and June 28, obstructing its ability to raise money and spread her message to potential voters.&#8221;
The Times further noted that, following Gabbard&#8217;s appearance during the first Democrat presidential debate, she was the most searched-for candidate on the search engine.
&#8220;Her campaign wanted to capitalize on the attention she was receiving by buying ads that would have placed its website at the top of search results for her name,&#8221; The Times added. &#8220;The lawsuit also said the Gabbard campaign believed its emails were being placed in spam folders on Gmail at “a disproportionately high rate” when compared with emails from other Democratic candidates.&#8221;
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced this week that it is opening an antitrust probe of big tech companies and that it will &#8220;examine practices of online platforms that dominate internet search, social media and retail services,&#8221; <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/23/doj-reportedly-to-open-broad-antitrust-review-of-big-tech-tech-stocks-dip.html">CNBC</a> reported.
&#8220;Without the discipline of meaningful market-based competition, digital platforms may act in ways that are not responsive to consumer demands,&#8221; <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-reviewing-practices-market-leading-online-platforms">said</a> Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim of the Antitrust Division. &#8220;The Department’s antitrust review will explore these important issues.&#8221;
The <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-to-open-broad-new-antitrust-review-of-big-tech-companies-11563914235?mod=hp_lead_pos1" target="" data-type="" rel="noopener noreferrer">Wall Street Journal</a> reported that the companies the DOJ will be looking into include Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple.

Democratic Presidential Candidate Tulsi Gabbard Files Massive Lawsuit Against Google

2020 Election

Apple

Democratic Party

Department of Justice

Lawsuit

Tulsi Gabbard

A Massachusetts pro-life Catholic man claims that Facebook censored a peaceful quote from the theologian St. Augustine of Hippo as &#8220;hate speech.&#8221;
According to <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/facebook-bans-saint-augustine-quote-as-hate-speech">LifeSiteNews</a>, Dominic Bettinelli published the St. Augustine quote on his Facebook page after two priests with whom he was friendly were allegedly censored by the social media platform for publishing the same words, arguing they violated &#8220;community standards on hate speech.&#8221;
The quote, which originates from one of the saint&#8217;s homilies, essentially repeats Jesus Christ&#8217;s command in Matthew 7:3 for people to focus on their own sins instead of focusing upon the sins of others.
&#8220;Let us never assume that if we live good lives we will be without sin; our lives should be praised only when we continue to beg for pardon,&#8221; says the Augustine quote. &#8220;But men are hopeless creatures, and the less they concentrate on their own sins, the more interested they become in the sins of others. They seek to criticize, not to correct. Unable to excuse themselves, they are ready to accuse others.&#8221;
To most reasonable people, the quote seems the exact opposite of &#8220;hate speech.&#8221; In fact, it condemns &#8220;hate speech&#8221; by admonishing people for accusing others instead of worrying about their own problems.
“Hate speech?” Bettinelli asked in regards to the censoring. &#8220;It’s the opposite of hate speech. It’s calling for people to stop focusing on others’ sins and concentrate on their own. Augustine is just re-formulating Jesus’ own words from the Gospel: &#8216;Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?&#8217; (Matthew 7:3).&#8221;
At first, Bettinelli believed the censorship originated from a mistaken computer algorithm; his assumptions were dashed when even a human review deemed the quote violated community standards of &#8220;hate speech.&#8221; In response, Bettinelli openly asked Facebook if the censoring implied that the Gospel promotes &#8220;hate speech.&#8221;
&#8220;I still don’t understand why this is hate speech,&#8221; Bettinelli told Facebook. &#8220;It’s a quote from a Catholic saint who expresses the opposite of hate speech. He is essentially restating the words of Jesus Christ in the Gospels to stop worrying about what the other guy is or isn’t doing and worry about your own flaws. Is Facebook saying that the Gospel is hate speech? But what’s worse is that I have no more understanding now of what is a violation of your community standards than I did before. I cannot for the life of me figure out why you label this hate speech.&#8221;
Speaking with LifeSiteNews, the pro-lifer said that friends of his have received similar notices from the social media platform for posting religious posts — none of which focus on particularly hot-button issues.
&#8220;A friend posted ‘men are hopeless creatures’ and that got banned, so that seems to be the relevant part that is hate speech,&#8221; he said.
The censoring has not stopped Bettinelli from talking about St. Augustine; he has vowed to blog about it, instead.
&#8220;If FB doesn&#8217;t want me to post it, then I&#8217;m going to blog about it and then I&#8217;m going to podcast about it and I&#8217;m going to make a stink about it until someone with some power gets FB to admit that quotations from early Church fathers is [sic] not hate speech,&#8221; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=Facebook&amp;ref=eyJzaWQiOiIwLjU3OTY3ODYwNjQ1MDcyMiIsInFzIjoiSlRWQ0pUSXlSbUZqWldKdmIyc2xNaklsTlVRIiwiZ3YiOiJiZWUwOWY5M2ZhNzMyY2ZhNTlhMWNiNmQ5ZjQ1MGQzODkyNDI0ZTQ5IiwiZW50X2lkcyI6W10sImJzaWQiOiIxYWExYzRiODVmZmEwNWFmMjJmYzI3YWQ3ZGIyZDM3NSIsInByZWxvYWRlZF9lbnRpdHlfaWRzIjpudWxsLCJwcmVsb2FkZWRfZW50aXR5X3R5cGUiOm51bGwsInJlZiI6ImJyX3RmIiwiY3NpZCI6bnVsbCwiaGlnaF9jb25maWRlbmNlX2FyZ3VtZW50IjpudWxsLCJjbGllbnRfdGltZV9tcyI6MTU2MzIwMzg3MjE1Nn0&amp;epa=SEARCH_BOX">he wrote</a> on Facebook.

REPORT: Facebook Censors Peaceful Saint Augustine Quote As ‘Hate Speech’

Catholicism

Censorship

Religion

This week, Sir Richard Branson&#8217;s Virgin Galactic announced a history-making move: it will become the first ever publicly traded space flight company. For the price of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-virgingalactic-rockets/virgin-galactic-completes-crewed-space-test-more-flights-soon-idUSKBN1OC1HA">$250,000</a>, Virgin Galactic will offer wealthy adventurers a chance to experience space, if only for a few moments. An essential part of making Branson&#8217;s decades-long goal a reality is, of course, the ability to fund the extremely costly space travel business, and to help do that a former Facebook executive has joined Branson to take the company public.
&#8220;Virgin Galactic is set to arrive on the stock market with not one, but two big characters at the helm,&#8221; <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/48e3fbba-a3de-11e9-974c-ad1c6ab5efd1">Financial Times</a> reported Thursday. The first is Branson, &#8220;a natural marketer who has been able to keep the believers in tow through years of setbacks.&#8221; The other is former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya, whom FT describes as &#8220;a Silicon Valley financier with a loud mouth and a willingness to make enemies.&#8221;
In a lengthy <a href="http://www.ft.com/content/e965443a-a32b-11e9-974c-ad1c6ab5efd1">profile</a> of Palihapitiya, Financial Times provides more details about how the financier is using Social Capital Hedosophia (SCH), &#8220;a blank cheque company that raised $600m on the New York Stock Exchange,&#8221; as a shell to move tech companies to the public markets &#8220;without the fuss of a traditional IPO process.&#8221;
After having effectively &#8220;laid dormant&#8221; for two years, SCH purchased 49% of Branson&#8217;s Virgin Galactic Tuesday, which cost SCH $700 million and another $100 million of Palihapitiya’s personal money. The deal &#8220;is one of the highest-profile transactions during the recent boom for special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs,&#8221; FT notes.
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Like many of his moves, Palihapitiya&#8217;s decision to invest in space tourism comes as a bit of a surprise, as he originally said he&#8217;d invest in larger value companies than the estimated $1.5 billion worth of Branson&#8217;s space tourism company.
&#8220;The filter was really less about the market size,&#8221; Palihapitiya said, FT reports. &#8220;What I was trying to say there . . . is how important it was for us to find a fast-growing technology company that can thrive in the public markets and that was a really indelible consumer brand, and I think Virgin is all of those things.&#8221;
Branson famously pulled out of a potential deal with Saudi Arabia last year after the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/13/17967954/virgin-galactic-richard-branson-saudi-arabia-jamal-khashoggi">The Verge</a> reported at the time:
<blockquote>Last year, the Virgin Group announced that Virgin Galactic and its spinoff companies, The Spaceship Company and Virgin Orbit, would receive an investment of $1 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The money was meant to help further the development and testing of Virgin Galactic’s spaceplane, which is meant to take tourists into space for brief periods of weightlessness, as well as Virgin Orbit’s rocket, designed to deploy from the wing of a carrier airplane. There was even talk of using the money to help further Virgin’s dream of creating point-to-point travel — the concept of using rockets to quickly carry people to different places on the Earth. In exchange, Virgin might help with the creation of a “space-centric entertainment industry” in Saudi Arabia.</blockquote>
But after the disappearance of Khashoggi, Branson announced that he was suspending his discussions with Saudi Arabia, writing in a <a href="https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/my-statement-kingdom-saudi-arabia">blog post</a>:
<blockquote>What has reportedly happened in Turkey around the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, if proved true, would clearly change the ability of any of us in the West to do business with the Saudi Government. We have asked for more information from the authorities in Saudi and to clarify their position in relation to Mr Khashoggi.
While those investigations are ongoing and Mr Khashoggi’s whereabouts are not known, I will suspend my directorships of the two tourism projects. Virgin will also suspend its discussions with the Public Investment Fund over the proposed investment in our space companies Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbit.</blockquote>
When that deal fell through, Palihapitiya started to take a close look at a potential acquisition of Branson&#8217;s company. Palihapitiya reportedly contacted him after a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-virgingalactic-rockets/virgin-galactic-completes-crewed-space-test-more-flights-soon-idUSKBN1OC1HA">successful test flight</a> in December last year, the talks moving forward over the last six months and culminating in the announcement this week.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45832/ted-cruz-calls-greater-us-investment-space-based-josh-hammer">Ted Cruz Calls For Greater U.S. Investment In Space-Based Interceptor Technology</a>

Virgin Galactic Makes Historic Move, Ex-Facebook Star Plays Key Role

In an interview with leftist media outlet <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sheryl-sandberg-planned-parenthood-donation-abortion-laws_n_5d151134e4b07f6ca57a55c1">HuffPost</a>, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg bragged about a whopping $1 million donation she recently made to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, an advocacy group owned by the eponymous abortion giant.
Sandberg told HuffPost that she is doing it to help Planned Parenthood fight what she calls the “draconian laws” recently passed by Alabama, Georgia, and Missouri to protect unborn children.
“I think this is a very urgent moment where the rights and the choices and the basic health of the most vulnerable women, the women who have been marginalized, often women of color, are at stake,” she said. “Planned Parenthood is going to fight back in the courts, in Congress, in the state houses, in the streets, for women’s health and rights.”
“If you are a wealthy woman, you can just fly to New York,” Sandberg continued. “I want to make sure that the women with the fewest resources still have access to these services, and I think that is slipping away every day in our country.”
“We all have to do everything we can to protect women,” she opined, noting that the massive donation came from her, personally — and not from Facebook.
The social media executive bragged that the gesture was “a very strong political statement.” However, Sandberg hedged on whether she supports the Hollywood-led boycotts of the pro-life states. She said that she neither supports nor condemn the boycotts.
“I certainly think people should do what they can,” Sandberg said.
Planned Parenthood President Dr. Leana Wen bragged about the support in a statement.
“Now, more than ever, Sheryl’s generous support is necessary to help Planned Parenthood fight back against unprecedented attacks on people’s health and rights,” Wen said, thanking Sandberg “for her longstanding commitment to Planned Parenthood and her leadership as a role model for women and girls everywhere.”
Wen added: “As anti-women’s health politicians try to pass extreme abortion bans across the country, our freedom and rights hang in the balance.”
This is not the first time Sandberg has given a large donation to the abortion lobby. According to <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/sheryl-sandberg-planned-parenthood-donation-abortion-laws-110000334.html">Yahoo! News</a>, she gave a similarly large donation to Planned Parenthood in 2017 to protest President Donald Trump’s order that international abortion lobbying organizations would be banned from receiving federal taxpayer funding.
Actress and left-wing activist Alyssa Milano has led a boycott against the state of Georgia after Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a “heartbeat bill” that protects unborn children there after a heartbeat is detected.
“I will do everything in my power to get as many productions as possible, including ‘Insatiable,'&#8221; she said at the time. “To move out of this state which continues to put forth oppressive, hurtful policy that contradicts everything the entertainment industry stands for.&#8221;
As noted by The Daily Wire’s James Barrett, actor and director <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48874/clint-eastwood-ignores-alyssa-milano-set-start-james-barrett">Clint Eastwood</a> is set to shoot his new film “The Ballad of Richard Jewell,” in Georgia, thus ignoring the calls for a boycott. The movie is directed by Eastwood and stars Paul Walter Hauser, Olivia Wilde, Jon Hamm, Sam Rockwell, Kathy Bates, and Ian Gomez.

Facebook COO Donates $1 Million To Planned Parenthood

Abortion

Alabama

Alyssa Milano

Clint Eastwood

Georgia

Planned Parenthood

On Wednesday, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) unveiled legislation aimed at stopping increasingly prevalent Big Tech censorship by stripping massive corporations of platform protections if said companies do not maintain political neutrality. The <a href="https://www.hawley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2019-06/Ending-Support-Internet-Censorship-Act-Bill-Text.pdf">Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act</a> specifically addresses how massive tech platforms are treated under under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA).
&#8220;With Section 230, tech companies get a sweetheart deal that no other industry enjoys: complete exemption from traditional publisher liability in exchange for providing a forum free of political censorship,&#8221; Hawley <a href="https://www.hawley.senate.gov/senator-hawley-introduces-legislation-amend-section-230-immunity-big-tech-companies">explained</a> on Wednesday.
&#8220;Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, big tech has failed to hold up its end of the bargain,&#8221; the senator continued. &#8220;There&#8217;s a growing list of evidence that shows big tech companies making editorial decisions to censor viewpoints they disagree with. Even worse, the entire process is shrouded in secrecy because these companies refuse to make their protocols public.&#8221;
Under the Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act, tech giants could only ensure their government-granted immunity by bringing &#8220;transparency and accountability to their editorial processes and prove that they don&#8217;t discriminate,&#8221; Hawley said.
Hawley&#8217;s campaign website <a href="https://www.hawley.senate.gov/senator-hawley-introduces-legislation-amend-section-230-immunity-big-tech-companies">details</a> what would be implemented and the mechanics of the bill if it were to be signed into law, highlighting:
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Removes automatic immunity under Section 230 from big tech companies</li>
<li>Gives big tech companies the ability to earn immunity through external audits
<ul>
<li>Big tech companies would have to prove to the FTC by clear and convincing evidence that their algorithms and content-removal practices are politically neutral</li>
<li>The FTC could not certify big tech companies for immunity except by a supermajority vote</li>
<li>Big tech companies would be responsible for the cost of conducting audits</li>
<li>Big tech companies would have to reapply for immunity every two years</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
The senator&#8217;s legislation only targets giant tech companies, applying &#8220;to companies with more than 30 million active monthly users in the U.S., more than 300 million active monthly users worldwide, or who have more than $500 million in global annual revenue.&#8221;
The bill comes as censorship against conservatives, or anyone not echoing far-left dogma, continues to grow on sites like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
For example, pro-life film &#8220;Unplanned&#8221; was seemingly targeted for censorship by Twitter. As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45431/efforts-censor-pro-life-film-unplanned-backfire-amanda-prestigiacomo">reported</a> by The Daily Wire in April, the &#8220;Unplanned&#8221; account (which was never &#8220;verified&#8221; by Twitter) was temporarily suspended, allegedly due to a supposed Twitter &#8220;error.&#8221; But when the account was restored after a major backlash, folks attempting to follow the account were unable to do so, or those who did follow were quickly removed from the account.
Journalist Tim Pool <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44425/watch-journalist-tim-pool-corners-twitters-vijaya-frank-camp">questioned</a> Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on &#8220;The Joe Rogan Experience&#8221; podcast about the apparent targeted censorship, asking &#8220;How many grains of sand&#8221; &#8212; or &#8220;errors&#8221;&#8212; &#8220;make a heap&#8221;?
&#8220;How many mistakes do they need to make before they realize maybe there is a systemic problem on their platform pointing in one direction?&#8221; Pool <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkXbAuQ2WhA#action=share">said</a>. &#8220;It&#8217;s very convenient for [Twitter] to say, &#8216;something happened behind the scenes &#8212; trust us.&#8217; I don&#8217;t.&#8221;
Amazingly enough, when Pool created a video discussing the censorship of &#8220;Unplanned,&#8221; his video had curious issues uploading to YouTube.
&#8220;In an odd coincidence, I made a video today about the suspension of [&#8216;Unplanned&#8217;] and the weirdest thing happened. Youtube didn&#8217;t publish the video as scheduled. It kept giving me an unknown error when I tried to manually publish it.&#8221; The journalist also noted that his view count for the video was &#8220;way down.&#8221; Another coincidence, assuredly.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
It kept giving me this weird error in red and wouldn&#8217;t publish.
I kept refreshing and trying again and it took about 5 minutes to get it to publish <a href="https://t.co/Ob5aswr14W">pic.twitter.com/Ob5aswr14W</a>
&#8212; Tim Pool (@Timcast) <a href="https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/1112809200428744709?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 1, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
The lack of transparency in the apparent censorship was made an issue by Hawley during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
&#8220;You said earlier that you are a pro-transparency company, that you want to embrace transparency. So you have your chance now; tell us you&#8217;ll make the protocols public,&#8221; Hawley grilled Twitter executive Carlos Mohje Jr. &#8220;Will you make them public?&#8221;
Mohje Jr. said it was not his decision to make such matters public, noting that he would have the Twitter team &#8220;get back&#8221; to Hawley regarding the transparency.
&#8220;This is why we need the Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act,&#8221; the senator&#8217;s press office posted to Twitter, capturing video of his interaction with the Twitter rep. &#8220;During a recent hearing on tech censorship and bias, Senator Hawley questioned Twitter&#8217;s approach to transparency. Watch what happened Twitter was asked to commit to making their processes public.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
This is why we need the Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act &#8594; During a recent hearing on tech censorship and bias, Senator Hawley questioned Twitter&#8217;s approach to transparency. Watch what happened Twitter was asked to commit to making their processes public: <a href="https://t.co/4rnW9ccKvk">pic.twitter.com/4rnW9ccKvk</a>
&#8212; Senator Hawley Press Office (@SenHawleyPress) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenHawleyPress/status/1141360109798473728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
In May, Facebook and Instagram <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46720/facebook-instagram-ban-far-right-figures-laura-amanda-prestigiacomo">deplatformed</a> so-called &#8220;dangerous&#8221; figures and organizations, including Infowars founder Alex Jones, self-described investigative journalist Laura Loomer, Infowars&#8217; Paul Joseph Watson, provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. The tech company has been accused of anti-conservative bias by Republicans and accused of not being censorial enough by Democrats.
Pinterest got in on the censorship game big-time this month, targeting Christian content, and when the alleged censorship was reported by investigative journalist group Project Veritas, that video was censored by YouTube. The Daily Wire&#8217;s James Barrett <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48387/big-tech-crackdown-youtube-deletes-project-veritas-james-barrett">reported</a>:
<blockquote>
In a chilling move that suggests Big Tech is coordinating to censor conservative voices, YouTube deleted a video produced by Project Veritas exposing alleged censorship of conservative and Christian content by Pinterest.
</blockquote>
Moreover, &#8220;Pinterest put the whistleblower who provided the documents featured in the report on administrative leave and permanently banned pro-life group Live Action, which was listed on its &#8216;porn domain block list,&#8217; as shown in the video,&#8221; Barrett noted. &#8220;Twitter also appears to have joined with the other platforms in targeting Project Veritas, hitting founder James O&#8217;Keefe for supposedly violating someone&#8217;s personal privacy through his journalistic investigation and blocking content involving Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro.&#8221;
<div> </div>

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Irony: Elizabeth Warren Slams Twitter’s Political Ad Ban Because It Covers Climate Change