LOUIE LOUIE: Gohmert Introduces Bill to Stop Bias By Social Media Giants
Peter D'Abrosca
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Lost in the shuffle during last week’s several wins for President Donald J. Trump and his administration was the fact that Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) introduced a bill that would disallow Silicon Valley tech giants from exerting bias against conservatives.
“Social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google are now among the largest and most powerful companies in the world,” Gohmert’s office said in a press release. “More and more people are turning to a social media platform for news than ever before, arguably making these companies more powerful than traditional media outlets. Yet, social media companies enjoy special legal protections under Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934, protections not shared by other media. Instead of acting like the neutral platforms they claim to be in order obtain their immunity, these companies have turned Section 230 into a license to potentially defraud and defame with impunity.”
That section of the Communications Act of 1934 allows social media companies the latitude for “blocking and screening of offensive material.” Oftentimes, companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google conflate “offensive” with “conservative,” like when Twitter banned “misgendering” on its platform, making it against the rules to point out the biological fact that a transgender woman is, scientifically speaking, a man. Twitter has quite literally engaged in Orwellian censorship of the truth.
“Representatives of social media companies have testified in Congressional hearings that they do not discriminate against or filter out conservative voices on their platforms. But for all their reassurances, the disturbing trend continues unabated,” Gohmert’s press release said. “Employees from some of these companies have communicated their disgust for conservatives and discussed ways to use social media platforms and algorithms to silence and prevent income to conservatives.”
Indeed they have. Google employees openly discussed their disappointment about Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential loss the day after the election, after attempting to bury search results from conservative news websites. The company also discussed how to increase voter turnout “in key states” for Clinton, and partnered with leftist non-profits in order to achieve that goal.
Gohmert wants to combat this type of behavior from the all-too-powerful Palo Alto Mafia.
“Since there still appears to be no sincere effort to stop this disconcerting behavior, it is time for social media companies to be liable for any biased and unethical impropriety of their employees as any other media company,” Gohmert said. “If these companies want to continue to act like a biased medium and publish their own agendas to the detriment of others, they need to be held accountable.”
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