Big Tech overwhelmingly censors Republican members of Congress by a rate of 53-to-1 compared to congressional Democrats.
That censorship has hit Republican Senators Rand Paul (KY) and Ron Johnson (WI), Rep. Jim Jordan (OH) and other Republicans in Congress. Facebook and Twitter have used their censorship mechanisms at least 30 separate times against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), including five Twitter suspensions and the flagging of at least 24 tweets with some type of warning label. Democrats have had just one member from the last two U.S. congressional delegations censored.
YouTube has deleted content posted by Senators Rand Paul (KY) and Ron Johnson (KY) and suspended both their accounts.
But besides censoring those Republicans already in Congress, Big Tech has also reportedly taken measures that impact new Republicans attempting to join the legislative body. Republican candidates running for U.S. Congress have been censored at least 15 times since November of 2019. Free Speech America could not find a single example of Democrat candidates facing censorship.
Author, lawyer and candidate for U.S. Senate J.D. Vance is just one example. He became a household name among conservatives after his book “Hillbilly Elegy” sold millions of copies. Vance experienced Big Tech’s wrath firsthand last week when Twitter suspended his campaign’s press account. “No warning. No explanation of what rules I allegedly broke. But this is what happens when we allow five companies to control what we’re allowed to say,” he tweeted.
Lauren Witzke, the 2020 Republican challenger to current Delaware Sen. Chris Coons (D), was suspended from Twitter twice in the weeks leading up to her general election. Current Republican candidate for Congress Dr. Rich McCormick, who is running in Georgia’s 7th congressional district, had one of his campaign ads, which criticized President Joe Biden's policy towards Afghanistan, removed from Facebook until the platform reinstated it, calling the ad's removal an error.
Facebook is aiding incumbent candidates, according to a Sept. 13, article. The Wall Street Journal uncovered internal Facebook files indicating the platform was keeping a so-called “whitelist” of powerful figures that it was “shielding” from its typical censorship procedures. “While the program included most government officials, it didn’t include all candidates for public office,” The WSJ reported, “at times effectively granting incumbents in elections an advantage over challengers.”
The report said the documents showed that “The discrepancy was most prevalent in state and local races,” and has reportedly worried Facebook employees it could expose the company to “accusations of favoritism.”
Big Tech CEOs, who are regularly questioned about targeting conservatives, can barely recall an instance when someone on the left was censored. During an Oct. 28 congressional hearing involving CEOs from Google, Facebook and Twitter, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) asked the Big Tech leaders to provide a single example of “one high profile person, or entity from a liberal ideology” who has been censored. Both Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, and Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, failed to provide a single example.
Big Tech began labeling virtually everything being posted by former President Trump and his campaign around the 2020 election. Platforms dispensed one of several censorship labels used to challenge and suppress information. The former president was eventually universally deplatformed by Big Tech and is still fighting to return.
Facebook’s temporary removal of a post in February, from Rep. Marie Newman (D-IL), is the only reported instance of censorship against a Democrat member of Congress. “Congresswoman, this plainly should not have happened,” tweeted Facebook’s Policy Communications Director Andy Stone 30 minutes after Rep. Newman complained about the censorship on Twitter. “We’ve restored this content and you have our sincere apologies.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the CensorTrack contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
