The left will use any tragedy to call for more censorship of content. Now they are getting Congress involved.
The House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, (D-MA) called upon tech companies last Tuesday to prevent the distribution of violent videos after the New Zealand attack. The anti-conservative Southern Poverty Law Center piled on, saying Big Tech companies “don’t think about white supremacy as an international terrorism problem.”
In a letter, Thompson asked the CEOs of “Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Alphabet-owned YouTube to attend a private briefing with the committee on March 27.” Thompson implored these tech giants that their platforms “must prioritize responding to these toxic and violent ideologies with resources and attention.”
“If you are unwilling to do so,” he continued, “Congress must consider policies to ensure that terrorist content is not distributed on your platforms—including by studying the examples being set by other countries.”
He elaborated by talking about their strong record removing “terrorism-related content,” such as ISIS and al-Qaeda-related material. “However, the public has largely been kept in the dark regarding metrics associated with other violent extremists, including far-right violent extremists.”
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Big Tech companies faced a major backlash after the New Zealand attack which lead to the deaths of 50 people. They were hammered for hosting people online with radical viewpoints, as well as for failing to restrict the distribution of the livestreamed massacre footage and the shooter’s manifesto. Fox Business stated that Facebook claimed to have removed “1.5 million videos of the attack around the world within the first 24 hours,” while YouTube, similarly claimed to have removed “tens of thousands of videos.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) slammed Big Tech as well, accusing social media companies of turning “a blind eye to hate [and] racism on their platforms for a decade.”
The Hill quoted Heidi Beirich, director of the the SPLC’s Intelligence Report, saying, that big tech companies have “barely started” to think of online white supremacy as a form of terrorism.
"[After 2017], we saw a shift in the industry to start removing this kind of content," Beirich lamented. "But it’s far from complete and it’s nothing like their universal bar on ISIS [and] al Qaeda." She blasted them further on this point by claiming that they "don’t think about white supremacy as an international terrorism problem," she added.
The irony about the SPLC is that the organization that prides itself as being against hate groups is a peddler of hatred and bias in itself. NewsBusters covered previous incidents where it was forced to “cough up $3.4 million and an abject apology to a Muslim anti-Sharia activist it had smeared” as well as the fact that “the Department of Defense and the FBI cut ties to the SPLC.” Michelle Malkin gave fiery speech at CPAC where be called it a “smear machine racket.” She voiced the popular claim that it that defames organizations that seek to protect America from radical Islam and illegal immigration as “hate groups.” The SPLC co-founder has recently been sacked for allegations of racism and sexual harassment.
The House Judiciary Committee has announced it will have a hearing on the subject of ‘white nationalism.’ Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), a ranking member of this committee has said to The Hill that Big Tech platforms “have a responsibility to explain their standards for blocking or banning content to Congress.”
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