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‘We’ve Lost Key Battles’: Big Tech Companies Quietly Reduce Censorship Teams Following Legal Battles, Layoffs
The Daily Caller ^ | February 14, 2023 | Katelynn Richardson

Posted on 02/19/2023 3:51:36 PM PST by Twotone

Big Tech’s censorship teams appear to be losing steam amidst legal scrutiny, layoffs, and waning popularity, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

YouTube, for example, cut two of five “hate speech and harassments” policy experts, removed two of five misinformation experts, and reduced its policy enforcement and response teams, according to the NYT. This comes after Google’s parent company, Alphabet, cut around 12,0000 employees in January.

Twitter’s reductions have been the most pronounced since Elon Musk’s takeover and promise to restore free speech, reinstating most previously banned accounts. In November, Twitter CEO Elon Musk laid off half of the company’s 8,000 employees after firing the executives who made some of the most controversial content moderation decisions, such as former Head of Legal Policy, Trust, and Safety Vijaya Gadde, who was a large part of the decision to remove former President Donald Trump from the platform.

“I wouldn’t say the war is over, but I think we’ve lost key battles,” Angelo Carusone, president of the left-leaning group dedicated to promoting censorship and ad boycotts of right-leaning media “Media Matters for America,” told the NYT. “I do think we, as a society, have lost the appetite to keep battling. And that means we will lose the war.”

Tech companies are now facing calls for accountability for the extensive influence they exercise over the content moderation process. Yesterday, Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz announced an investigation into company recommendation algorithms that “restrict the visibility of high-profile conservative accounts,” he wrote in a letter to Meta, Google, Twitter and TikTok.

“Taken as a whole, these systems have an outsized impact—whether positive or negative—on the reach of content and accounts and, by extension, speech,” Cruz wrote. Yet company mindsets on misinformation policies have largely not changed.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: angelocarusone; bigtech; carusone; censorship; civilrights; cruz; elonmusk; freespeech; gadde; garde; internet; layoffs; mediamatters; mm; mm4a; mma; mmfa; musk; socialmedia; tedcruz; twitter; vijayagadde

1 posted on 02/19/2023 3:51:37 PM PST by Twotone
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To: Twotone

YouTube realizes that Twitter can, and does, also host video. If YouTube censors, people can host video at Twitter


2 posted on 02/19/2023 3:55:09 PM PST by SauronOfMordor (The rot of all principle begins with a single compromise.)
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To: Twotone

I am glad all of this is backfiring on them. Go woke go broke.


3 posted on 02/19/2023 3:57:44 PM PST by Parley Baer (WI)
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To: Twotone

They’re corrupt government cronies who were busted being fascist nazis and they’re sorry they got caught


4 posted on 02/19/2023 3:59:02 PM PST by NWFree (Somebody has to say it 🤪)
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To: Twotone

Eh, they are between elections and probably increasing their use of AI instead.


5 posted on 02/19/2023 4:04:00 PM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: Twotone

W O K E that spells broke


6 posted on 02/19/2023 4:06:53 PM PST by Recompennation (Don’t blame me my vote didn’t count)
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To: Twotone

Send them to prison. For civil rights and RICO violations.


7 posted on 02/19/2023 5:02:45 PM PST by Nuc 1.1 (Liberals aren't Patriots. Remember 1789!)
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To: Parley Baer; Openurmind

I’m not really sure we can say that, can we?

There never was a big widespread move by conservatives to get off of big tech platforms or products. Facebook and Twitter still have most of their subscriptions, and we never saw anybody getting off of their Windows or Apple or Google(Android) offerings.

It seems that Big Tech did lose, but it wasn’t conservatives fighting the battle. Most of us were simply bystanders.


8 posted on 02/19/2023 5:34:20 PM PST by ProgressingAmerica (The historians must be stopped. They're destroying everything.)
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To: Twotone

Some of the bigger YouTube alternatives include Rumble, Bitchute, and Odysee.


9 posted on 02/19/2023 7:48:41 PM PST by Angelino97
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To: Twotone

Three letter agencies cut their “donations” that covered that payroll


10 posted on 02/19/2023 7:51:26 PM PST by Steven Tyler
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To: ProgressingAmerica
we never saw anybody getting off of their Windows or Apple or Google(Android) offerings.

If you want a cell phone, there's no real alternative to Apple or Android.

I bought a (non-Adnroid) Linux cell phone from Europe in 2021. They assure me it would work in the U.S. But I went to four U.S. phone providers, and none could get the phone to recognize their SIM cards. So I returned the phone and bought an Apple.

11 posted on 02/19/2023 7:52:58 PM PST by Angelino97
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