When Facebook’s “unbiased” review board decided not to reinstate President Trump’s account, Republicans lashed out over censorship while Democrats cheered the same. It has become a major dividing line between the right and left; conservatives want no censorship of legal content on platforms like Twitter and Facebook while progressives are demanding even more.
Questions were raised by Republican strategists about how this would affect Trump’s political future. Facebook and Twitter each hold a tremendous amount of sway in politics, for now, and not having access to them would hamper a future presidential run by Trump. NPR acknowledged this, and in doing so made the de facto pronouncement that Big Tech wields tremendous power over elections. Mollie Hemingway at The Federalist noticed.
Interesting way of admitting how much election interference and election meddling against Republicans that our tech companies can do and have done! https://t.co/EzQMD3lWO2
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) May 6, 2021
“Interesting way of admitting how much election interference and election meddling against Republicans that our tech companies can do and have done!” she Tweeted in response to an NPR post.
The article titled “Why Facebook’s Decision On Trump Could Be ‘Make Or Break’ For His Political Future” was promoted by NPR with the comment referenced by Hemingway. They Tweeted, “Whether or not Facebook decides to reinstate former President Trump’s account in the coming months will likely have major consequences for Trump’s political power and possible future campaign.”
The article reads:
Facebook’s Oversight Board on Wednesday essentially punted the decision back to the company on whether to eventually allow former President Donald Trump back on Facebook and Instagram. What the social media giant decides in the coming months will likely have major consequences for Trump’s political power.
“It could be a make-or-break moment for Trump’s political future,” said Eric Wilson, a Republican political technologist.
That’s because being on Facebook is crucial for modern-day political campaigns, as a majority of Americans use the platform and those who do log into it multiple times daily. Facebook has become crucial for raising money and for targeting supporters and swing voters, something the Trump campaign did in unprecedented ways. The majority of online ad dollars go to either Facebook or Google.
“Even with all the resources Donald Trump has,” Wilson said, “Facebook is so much bigger than that, that you can’t get around it.”
In a statement responding to the Oversight Board’s non-decision decision, Trump, who remains banned on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, called the stances of the social media giants a “total disgrace and an embarrassment to our Country.” He also promised a degree of retribution, threatening that they “must pay a political price.”
As Hemingway noted, the power that Big Tech companies have over elections invariably puts very heavy thumbs on scales that benefit Democrats. Silicon Valley and other tech hubs are heavily populated by leftists. Meanwhile, both leadership and the majority of employees at Big Tech companies are generally progressive, sometimes radically so.
They don’t even try to hide it anymore despite the fact that they lie outright when questioned about it on Capitol Hill. In testimony, Big Tech CEOs have always claimed to be unbiased but the vast majority of bans, suspensions, and purged content are right-leaning if not outright conservative. Meanwhile, ludicrous leftist notions like Critical Race Theory and Defund Police are heralded on these platforms, shared widely with nary a risk of repercussions.
Republicans have called for restrictions to censorship by these platforms for some time with little movement towards actual action. Critics of such moves say these are private companies who can do what they want, but they are also protected under Section 230. That protection should not allow them to be so unambiguously one-sided in their censorship decisions.
With Democrats in charge of Capitol Hill, states must act. The power wielded by Big Tech over American society is massive. They direct politics and culture. They decide winners and losers. They must be reined in as soon as possible.
YouTube, Spotify, and other Big Tech platforms are taking Freedom First Network down
It’s no secret we speak our minds and bring on guests who do the same. That’s one of the biggest reasons we put together the Freedom First Network in the first place. There are far too many news outlets, including so-called “conservative” media companies, who are so beholden to Big Tech that they temper their perspectives at best and outright coverup the truth at worst. Many, as you all know, will blatantly lie in order to maintain the narrative that supports the radical agenda taking over much of the United States.
We have had our YouTube channel taken down. Many of our shows have been suppressed or removed by Facebook and Twitter. Spotify banned one of our shows completely from their platform. Google hates us. We’ve even been censored by some of the smaller players like Medium, Transistor, and Captivate. But we stand behind our reporting and perspectives and we refuse to bow down to Big Tech tyranny for the sake of pageviews or video plays.
This isn’t the easiest road to travel, especially for a media company that is so new. We launched Freedom First Network in 2020 to fight against the very censorship that we’re seeing so widespread today. We have found great homes for our content on freer speech platforms like Rumble and we’re putting our best efforts forward into building our presence on Locals. Nevertheless, we cannot do it alone. We need help.
One of the things cofounders Jeff Dornik and JD Rucker agreed to from the start was to never be the pawns of companies that do not embrace our worldview. Finding advertisers and affiliates is easy; we receive requests by companies wanting to be pushed on our shows every day. But it’s important to us that we’re promoting companies, services, and products that are beneficial to maintaining a Freedom First stance in America. As a result, we do not take on sponsors easily. We would rather rely on our own products like Freedom First Coffee and the support of our wonderful viewers, listeners, and readers.
Those who want to support us and help keep the fight for America’s future moving forward can do so by donating through our Locals page. There, you can donate monthly or one-time. Some have told us to use Patreon or GoFundMe, but both of those platforms have demonstrated a hatred for free speech. Locals does not. They embrace it. We encourage everyone to join us on Locals, but donations are greatly appreciated as well. We do not have day jobs. Our fight for freedom is a full-time gig.
Please feel free to reach out to us through our contact form. It goes directly to our founders, so if you’re interested in getting involved, investing, sponsoring, or even bringing a show to our network, let us know. May God Bless the United States of America!