63 Conservative Leaders Unite, Issue Statement On Social Media Censorship
Western Journal publisher Floyd Brown and Liftable Media CEO Patrick Brown are two of 63 conservative leaders who issued a joint statement Wednesday urging fairer and more transparent policies in order to prevent the suppression of conservative voices on various social media platforms.
“Social media censorship and online restriction of conservatives and their organizations have reached a crisis level,” the statement begins. “Conservative leaders now have banded together to call for equal treatment on tech and social media.”
The statement illustrates the problems conservatives have encountered with Facebook, Twitter, Google, and its video platform YouTube.
“Social media firms have banned gun videos and rejected pro-life advertisements,” the statement reads. “They have skewed search results and adjusted trending topics in ways that have harmed the right. Firms have restricted and deleted videos, even academic content. Conservative tech employees have found their speech limited and their careers harmed. And top tech companies have given preferential treatment to anointed legacy media outlets that also lean left. These same tech titans then work with groups openly hostile to conservatives to restrict speech.”
The statement lays out four areas it believes social media companies must address to begin to rectify their credibility problem.
First, it asks the companies to provide transparency to illustrate if left-leaning posts receive the same scrutiny as those posts by conservatives.
“Social media companies operate in a black-box environment, only releasing anecdotes about reports on content and users when they think it necessary,” the statement reads. “This needs to change. The companies need to design open systems so that they can be held accountable, while giving weight to privacy concerns.”
Second, the statement asks for clarity on what each company defines as hate speech.
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“No two firms define it the same way,” the statement reads. “Their definitions are vague and open to interpretation, and their interpretation often looks like an opportunity to silence thought. Today, hate speech means anything liberals don’t like. Silencing those you disagree with is dangerous. If companies can’t tell users clearly what it is, then they shouldn’t try to regulate it.”
Third, it wants social media firms to add conservatives to help balance their content advisory teams.
“Top social media firms, such as Google and YouTube, have chosen to work with dishonest groups that are actively opposed to the conservative movement, including the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the statement reads. “Those companies need to make equal room for conservative groups as advisers to offset this bias. That same attitude should be applied to employment diversity efforts. Tech companies need to embrace viewpoint diversity.”
Finally, it wants social media companies to respect their users’ right to free speech.
“Tech giants should afford their users nothing less than the free speech and free exercise of religion embodied in the First Amendment as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court,” the statement reads. “That standard, the result of centuries of American jurisprudence, would enable the rightful blocking of content that threatens violence or spews obscenity, without trampling on free speech liberties that have long made the United States a beacon for freedom.”
RELATED: Facebook Submits to Political Bias Audit Amid Allegations of Censoring Conservative Voices
The statement says addressing these issues is critical if social media firms “wish to have any credibility with the conservative movement and its tens of millions of supporters.”
“If the social media firms engage the conservative movement with the spirit of cooperation, we will do our best to assist them,” the statement concludes.
Among those who signed the statement are Media Research Center founder and President Brent Bozell, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, Texas Congressman Lamar Smith, former Attorney General Edwin Meese, Project Veritas CEO James O’Keefe, and retired Army Lt. Col. Allen B. West, who is also director of the MRC Censorship Project for the Media Research Center. https://www.westernjournal.com/63-conservative-leaders-unite-issue-statement-on-social-media-censorship/
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What about the suppression of liberal voices on various social media platforms?
My comments always get deleted whenever I post on Breitbart. Waaaah!
Yes they do. That's why I don't bother posting on Breitbart anymore.
Do you have freedom of speech? Yes. Do you have freedom of speech on private property, or privately owned media? No.
Example? Lets say NT was conservative or liberal owned. Could they suppress the voices of conservatives or liberals? Yes, and there isn't a damn thing anyone could do about it.
Ummmm.....they do exactly that since they oppose censorship by the government and oppose infringement of religion by the government.
It's really not clear what the seeder or the article's author are whining about. Did they both skip high school civics?
Charlottesville. "Blood and Soil. Jews will not replace us."
Nobody is censoring conservatism. It is being heard loud and clear.
MAGA
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Misogynist Authoritarian Grabbing Ass
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LOL... I saw it on twitter not long after I used it here...so I am sure someone else got to it before I did.. But thanks
Granted NT is not a social media giant, however the Conservative right wing voice is not just strong on this site, but to a large extent rules the site. The truth it is that Conservative Christian thought that claims is the truth on every social and media outlet site. Conservatives run America, especially Christian Conservatives, yet they are the ones who claim falsely to be the most oppressed. It would be funny if it were not so pathetic.
The vast, vast majority of Americans are Christians. The vast, vast majority of people in political power are Christians. Congress opens each day with a prayer from a Christian. The idea of a person being elected to the office of the President of the United States who does not profess a strong Christian faith is unthinkable and the same is true for the majority of federal elective offices. I mean there is not a thinking person in America who thinks that Donald Trump is actually a Christian or has any idea of what it means to be one, but he professes the faith and says the right words, so he gets the mulligan enough to be accepted. When running for the House or the Senate, except in a very few Districts, being a professed and strong church going Christian is a requirement. The government is controlled by Christians.
The vast, vast majority of people who serve in the United States military are Christians, some far too fanatically such as has been shown at scandals at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Of course the U.S. Military is very accepting of other religions, but if you don't have a religion, are an atheist you are still required to have a faith stamped on your dog tags. When I joined the Air Force and they asked what religion I wanted on my dog tags I said none, that I didn't have a religion. They asked what religion I had been raised in and I told the Roman Catholic, so that's what was stamped on them. They didn't give me an option. None was not an option.
The vast, vast majority of people who run businesses in America are Christian and some of them run their companies in very Christian ways (Chick-fil-a, Hobby Lobby, and number of Christian run hospitals).
No matter how you cut it the vast, vast, vast overwhelming force in this nation, barely held back by the concept of the separation of church and state, are the Christians and they are constantly assaulting the idea of that separation and want to change this from a secular nation as our forefathers intended it to be because they knew it could not survive in any other way, into a Christian nation and whenever they are stopped from doing so they bitch and piss and moan and complain that they are being persecuted when the plain and simple truth is that all that is happening is that they are being prevented from taking over the government and the free lives of people who do not believe as they do.
The are being prevented from doing otherwise because of what their faith tells them that they must do and that is to convert everyone to the faith and love of Jesus Christ. They can not help this because it is their faith, their mission. Well my faith is the Constitution of the United States of America. It is my Bible and to me it is more sacred and more powerful when it comes to the rights of human beings in this nation. It, not the Bible, is the Supreme Word in America!
I wonder how many of those religious leaders were praying that somebody catches a few slugs.