While Americans celebrated St. Valentine’s Day in February, Big Tech proved that it still loves censorship.
While Meta and X aim to be more free speech, tech platforms continue to silence Americans. While Google-owned YouTube suppressed an interview of the Secretary of State, X fact checkers went after the platform’s owner and Department Of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.) head Elon Musk. Meanwhile, Norton Antivirus labeled X “dangerous,” and TikTok removed a Mahatma Gandhi quote.
Below are the worst cases of censorship MRC logged in its unique CensorTrack database for February.
Google’s YouTube “search suppresses” interview with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Catherine Herridge, former correspondent for CBS News and Fox News, posted a 45-minute interview she conducted of Secretary Rubio to her Catherine Herridge Reports YouTube channel Feb. 20. Rubio and Herridge discussed his first month in office under President Donald Trump.
Only one day after Herridge posted the interview, MRC researchers discovered that queries for the video in YouTube's search feature did not immediately bring it up. Typing in the title “Exclusive: First 30 Days With Secretary of State Marco Rubio” brought up the video as the second result. Listed first was a “Middle East Eye” video, “Who is Marco Rubio? Trump's new secretary of state.” YouTube did not bring up the interview at all when searching the platform using only the terms “Marco Rubio Catherine Herridge interview.” The top result was a small account: “Focus on Iran.” These results indicate that YouTube was search suppressing the interview of Rubio.
Norton Antivirus software labels X a “dangerous webpage.” Norton Antivirus software, which is supposed to protect devices from computer viruses and online scams, blocked a user from accessing X.com. The user’s screenshots show Norton stopped the X.com page from loading “because it is a dangerous webpage.” Norton further asserted that the “Threat category” was “URL:Scam.” While the user then reported this categorization as a false detection, it is not clear if Norton addressed the issue.
X Community Notes goes on a fact checking spree. On Feb. 20, Elon Musk posted, “Unfortunately, @CommunityNotes is increasingly being gamed by governments & legacy media. Working to fix this.” The original tweet has been deleted, but Gizmodo claimed that Musk was frustrated by Community Notes using leftist sources to defend controversial Ukrainian leader Volodomyr Zelensky. That same day, Musk critiqued a since-removed Community Note on a video clip of him saying his SpaceX intends to rescue astronauts who will have been stranded for nearly 300 days on the space station. “They were left up there for political reasons, which is not good,” Musk told Fox News host Sean Hannity. When Community Notes used legacy media to label the clip, Musk replied, “This Community Note is false. SpaceX could have brought the astronauts back last year, but Biden pushed the return past the inauguration date. Legacy media is NOT a reliable source.” Community Notes fact checkers imposed yet another note on this post, defending the supposed reliability of legacy media and lecturing Musk on not “choosing what community notes show up.”
TikTok removes an alleged quote from activist Mahatma Gandhi. An X user shared a screenshot of a TikTok censorship notice regarding her comment on the communist Chinese government-tied platform that read, “'I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. - Mahatma Gandhi.'” TikTok asserted the comment was “against our Community Guidelines,” but did not specify why.
Snopes claims that the quote could be a misattribution, as no authoritative source supports it being Gandhi’s, though attributions to him began in the 1930s. The TikTok censorship notice did not note if this was the reason for censorship.
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 using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
