After years of Twitter flagging or removing parody videos from conservatives, President Donald Trump called out the platform for allowing a photoshopped image of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to remain on the platform.
Trump blasted Twitter for hypocritically allowing a photoshopped image of McConnell in a Russian military uniform as “Moscow Mitch” on September 8. Trump asked: “Why does Twitter leave phony pictures like this up, but take down Republican/Conservative pictures and statements that are true?” Trump then demanded that conservatives take action: “Mitch must fight back and repeal Section 230, immediately.” He called for senators to “Stop biased Big Tech before they stop you!”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) quickly responded by retweeting the post and declaring: “The Senate should vote NOW on my bill to permit individuals unfairly censored by #BigTech to sue!” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) also responded to the Trump tweet by proclaiming that “Conservative voices have been censored by Silicon Valley for far too long.”
Twitter indeed has an infamous history of double standards when it comes to political parodies.
Pro-Trump meme creator Carpe Donktum’s video parodying CNN coverage was labelled by Twitter as “manipulated media” in June.
The meme video depicted a fake CNN headline that stated, "TERRIFIED TODLER [sic] RUNS FROM RACIST BABY." The footage featured an African-American toddler being chased by a white toddler with seemingly ominous music playing in the background. The segment was followed by a clip of "WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED," which featured the same two children “running toward each other on a sidewalk before embracing as Harry Connick Jr.'s version of the Carpenters’ ‘Close to You’ plays,” NBC News summarized.
While the video was clearly intended as a hyperbolic parody of liberal media coverage, Big Tech and liberal journalists took it with utter seriousness. The parody video’s editor, Carpe Donktum, has since been suspended from Twitter.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact the FCC at 1-888-225-5322 and/or via the MRC’s FCC contact form to give your take on the petition filed by the Department of Commerce regarding Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. 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.
