One of the most watched news shows in the country aired the rantings of a George Soros-funded organization that vilified free speech on social media just two days before Election Day.
CBS’s 60 Minutes dedicated at least 522 seconds of airtime during its Nov. 6 show to the fear-mongering of Center for Humane Technology (CHT) co-founder Tristan Harris, two days before the Nov. 8 midterm elections.
“Social media is a showcase of our anger,” CBS correspondent Bill Whitaker proclaimed. “An analysis by The New York Times this fall found that online use of the phrase ‘civil war’ has exploded.” Whitaker ignored the fact that the liberal media has been stoking the flames by popularizing the use of the word “civil war” to smear the right in Americans’ daily news diets. Whitaker elevated Harris by propagandizing how his organization was the voice of reason slamming social media for “generating billions by making us angry.”
Harris railed at how “the more moral[ly] outrageous language you use — the more inflammatory language, contemptuous language, the more indignation you use — the more it will get shared. So, we are being rewarded for being division entrepreneurs.”
Harris should speak for himself, because he has been rewarded handsomely for being a “division entrepreneur[]." Soros’ Foundation to Promote Open Society funded Harris’s group with a $1 million grant in 2020, which CBS conveniently chose not disclose. Soros-funded groups financed to the tune of at least $80,233,084 have been applying pressure on Big Tech to censor so-called election “disinformation” before the 2022 midterm elections. CHT specifically targets “disinformation” affecting “elections” as one of its “key issues.”
CBS echoed Harris’ leftist idealism that the government should exert greater control over Silicon Valley tech giants: “Harris believes the best path to reform would be stricter government regulation of social media platforms, or at least a requirement that they be more transparent.”
Whitaker, of course, didn’t say anything about the ongoing Missouri and Louisiana state attorneys generals’ lawsuits against the Biden administration for allegedly colluding with Big Tech platforms to censor American political speech. CBS only alluded to more generic investigations into TikTok and Instagram for their reported physical and mental harms on children — but not censorship.
CHT’s recommendations go far beyond mere government control of Big Tech platforms. Harris’s group, in particular, advocated for Orwellian proposals to address what it deems social media’s “weakening” of “global democratic functioning.”
Here were some of the most disturbing, anti-American proposals posted on CHT’s website, which CBS ignored:
- “Implement media and campaign ‘quiet periods.’” CHT pointed to how “France has an electoral discretionary period in which media outlets are prohibited from sharing any campaign-related news 2 days up to an election.” (So, if the now-verified Hunter Biden laptop bombshell emerged two days before the 2020 election, CHT’s argument is that voters should not have seen it.)
- “Support banning political advertising on social media platforms to limit disinformation, violence, extremism, and paid election interference.” CHT linked to a proposal by California Democrat Rep. Anna Eshoo calling to “strengthen our democracy by prohibiting microtargeted political ads.”
CBS referred its millions of viewers to CHT’s website for its program called, “Foundations of Humane Technology,” which dons a banner link to the more extreme policy proposals listed under the “Key Issues” page.
“Harris says real change may have to be forced in court,” Whitaker summarized. The “change” Harris’s group pushes involves the government wielding more control over online speech. But no one would know this by watching 60 Minutes.
Harris also claimed that Big Tech should be treated like Big Tobacco in the 1990s when state attorneys general sued the industry for “harms to people and their families.”
But what CHT characterizes as “harms” are not objective. In its “Ledger of Harms,” CHT directly defended the extremist, Marxist Black Lives Matter movement from critical Facebook posts in a subsection headlined “Systemic Oppression.”
70% of the most shared Facebook posts about Black Lives Matter in June 2020 were critical of the movement, despite the fact that the majority of Americans support BLM, according to research by data analysis company CrowdTangle. Such fake representations of public opinion can play a significant role in distorting the basis for democratic dialogue and diminishing the momentum for social change.
CBS ignored this too.
Whitaker promoted Harris’s arguments by pointing to social media reactions to tweets from Bloomberg News, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and leftist super PAC MeidasTouch regarding the Department of Justice’s release of photos of documents uncovered in the FBI’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, Fla., home. Greene tweeted that people like Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) were “dumbasses” for publicly sharing photos of documents that the FBI allegedly said were “secretive.” Meanwhile, MeidasTouch outrageously called Trump a “traitor.” Both Greene and MeidasTouch had more engagement than Bloomberg News’s straight news tweet of its report, supposedly because of their inflammatory language.
“Why is it that the world knows more about Marjorie Taylor Greene than they know about all the other hundreds of congressional candidates?” Harris complained. “It’s because the enraging, inflammatory stuff goes the most viral.” In essence, CBS used Harris’s talking points to smear a Republican candidate without mentioning any Democratic candidates who used inflammatory rhetoric on social media during the segment. Greene also just happens to be on the ballot for reelection today against her Democratic opponent Marcus Flowers.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact CBS 60 minutes at (212) 975-3247 and hold the network to account for not disclosing Tristan Harris’s financial ties to George Soros.
