Posted on 05/04/2019 9:39:38 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Facebook and Google increasingly influence Congress as the social media giants censor conservative and alternative voices, dominate the Internet, and violate Americans’ privacy. Facebook announced on Thursday that they have banned several conservative personalities such as Infowars host Alex Jones, Infowars contributor and YouTube personality Paul Joseph Watson, journalist and activist Laura Loomer, and Milo Yiannopoulus. The social media giant also banned Louis Farrakhan from its platforms.
Facebook said that they banned these personalities because they were “dangerous.”
Amid calls for greater regulation of social media companies’ potential anticompetitive behavior, censorship of conservative and alternative voices, and privacy violations, Facebook and Google have remained at the top of Open Secret’s database of top spenders lobbying Congress.
So far in 2019, Facebook spent $3,400,000 and Google’s parent company, Alphabet, $3,530,00 in lobbying Congress. Alphabet also ranked as the eighth total highest spender in lobbying in 2018, spending $21,740,000, while Facebook spent $12,620,000.
Facebook’s influence has continued to rise over the years. In the early years of President Barack Obama, Facebook spent below one million dollars in 2008 and 2009. From 2011 to 2018, Facebook’s lobbying spending skyrocketed and reached historic highs in 2018, when they spent $12.6 million.
In 2019, Facebook lobbied heavily on H.R. 1644, the Save the Internet Act, a Democrat bill which would restore the Obama-era Federal Communications Commission (FCC) net neutrality regulations, which arose as the result of Google’s heavy lobbying of the Obama administration. In 2019, Google also lobbied on the Save the Internet Act.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Then Dems will attack Trump for taking away they’re version of Free Speech ,LOL
I totally agree about the “preaching to the choir” here on Freerepublic.
FYI, Twitter is a lot of fun and it’s very easy to use.
If you’re not on Twitter please try it.
I'm on Twitter but it increasingly frustrating to see the people I follow get suspended.
So how different is this type of electioneering than Russian meddling, doing much the same thing?
Global Engagement Center works with many social media's for a piece of this contract. With mission to counter terrorist propaganda and disinformation overseas
The problem is that Facebook is basically modern day town square. And that’s where everyone is at. It will eventually lead to totalitarianism when tech companies collude with leftists to ban alternative voices from gaining any traction.
Better yet, demonetize Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. by declining to patronize them.
It’s the surest way to defeat them.
So this contract, which you still have not produced, has language that somehow abrogates Facebook’s Constitutional free speech rights? Nice try.
You realize you and Facebook are both asking for the same thing? You both want government regulation of speech.
That is what I said earlier. Free republic is a forum or at least is should be. Who Jim can ban is the question at hand. People that are disruptive are not allowed on any type of forum which means Jim would have that right to ban them.
I support a revised net neutrality act/regulations - not the one the Obama administration passed. Big Tech, specifically the social media companies which have a dominant market share in their niche ie Youtube/Google, Facebook, Twitter should be banned from banning, censoring, regulating, demonetizing, deplatforming, throttling or in any way being discriminatory against any but “CLEARLY ILLEGAL” speech.
That specifically means no so-called “hate speech” codes. Yes, that specifically means they may not comply with EU regulations - at least not in the US.
Failing that, they should be broken up under anti-trust laws as illegal monopolies.
The problem as I see it is that that pulled a bait-and-switch to prevent any competitors from gaining a foothold.
For years they allowed conservative viewpoints until they started losing elections, then they started banning us.
Bait-and-switch is fraud.
Don Jr.’s on the cause in the right and a big way.
But Ivanka has been far too focused on cozying up with global business and national leaders for my tastes, including in Silicon Valley.
And Jared of course is up to his neck in conflicts of interest that also spread into the Valley:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/12/16/kushner-cadre-opprtunity-zone/2333861002/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/world/middleeast/kushner-saudi-arabia.html
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/thrive-capital#section-overview
It’s just a matter of time before all this Kushner crap blows up—I hope Trump can make it through re-election and a second term before it does, but it puts him in the crosshairs for hypocrisy charges if he goes after the corrupt Dem pols.
Everyone. Basically. Eventually. Collude. Not a lot of facts in use.
So your answer, to privately owned Facebook restricting speech, is to use the power of the US government to force Facebook to carry your speech? So you think conservatives are better off in a world were the government decides what speech is carried and who carrys it? All so you can be on Facebook. Net neutrality was big for Freepers whining about not getting or paying extra for Netflix. Now it’s whining about being on Facebook.
Everyone is not on Facebook and it is no more a Town Square then the shopping malls of old. This ploy is nothing more than a dust off of the Fairness Doctrine.
Global Engagement Center (GEC) operates in Britain which means they don't believe they need to follow US law.
They're using the same method of obfuscating US law as the NSA Five eye program works using international laws. This is direct violation of US law and the supreme court has already ruled on this. Yet they're still in operation which I don't understand how.
That’s right and Facebook is a forum so no need to apply libel laws to it. If that’s what you said then I misunderstood.
I think Facebook’s problem is that in order to be free of libel issues it cannot act as an editor. But when it removes content it is acting as an editor. They want it both ways. That is why they are lobbying for government intervention. Ironically most Freepers now want the same thing as Facebook which are government regulations.
When has government regulations of speech ever helped conservatives? Campaign finance? Fairness Doctrine? PBS? FCC? FTC? The left is the party of government anything that gives the government more power strengthens leftists.
Yes and no. Yes it should be up to US law on how forums are conducted. Such as braking of any laws. The real question is what does it mean to "disrupt a public forum"
Because these social media's are political forums. Politicians do use them to communicate with citizens. The US supreme court has already ruled on that.
They should be under freedom of speech laws.
I don't think there is a real clear answer to what "disrupt" means. Which is left to the forum operator to decide. That is the real issue. Facebook gets around this by claiming it's not a forum at all and can delete anyone they feel like.
So, are you saying this?: That this $500k contract which you still have not produced somehow breaks a law which you have not named and thereby abrogates Facebooks free speech rights and therefore you think that means the US government should control the content of Facebook.
The government should not have the right to control the content of Facebook.
Facebook is supposed to be a platform, rather than a publisher. But recently, they are leaning towards to being a publisher. In that case, it changes the game completely.
you're absolutely right on that. It doesn't happen. Right now they're getting around those laws completely and banning all conservatives they don't personally like.
I don't think there is a clear answer to this problem yet. If someone comes up with something. I would love to hear it.
Do you understand the US Constitution prevents the government from passing laws that restrict speech? US law should not govern any private speech. Calling it a Forum does not change the law. It is still a privately owned forum whose owners are free to restrict or promote speakers as they wish free from government control.
What are the “freedom of speech laws” you are referring to?
Can you find one instance where government regulation has helped the cause of liberty and conservative speech?
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