Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) strongly cautioned their colleagues in the Senate and witnesses from Big Tech against continuing past censorship of Americans in the name of combatting so-called foreign mis-, dis- and mal-information.
The Senate Intelligence Committee held a Sept. 18 hearing on “Foreign Threats to Elections in 2024” featuring President of Global Affairs for Google and Alphabet Kent Walker, Meta President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg and Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith. During the hearing, Sen. Rubio and Sen. Cotton both emphasized serious past abuses committed by Big Tech platforms allegedly in the name of fighting Russian disinformation.
On Aug. 9, the MRC-led Free Speech Alliance put Big Tech on notice, calling on Big Tech executives to affirm their commitment to not censor Americans’ speech in the lead-up to the 2024 election “as so many of [them] did in 2020.” In a letter, the Free Speech Alliance listed examples of egregious past and present election interference and censorship by the platforms, most notably when Twitter and Facebook censored the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, and when at least 10 major platforms banned then-sitting President Donald Trump from their platforms.
Sen. Cotton made the point that fears of “memes” and “YouTube videos” interfering in elections pale in comparison to “an example of election interference here in America that was so egregious, some of your companies efforts, in collusion with Joe Biden’s campaign, led by the current Secretary of State to suppress the factual reporting about Hunter Biden’s laptop.”
Sen. Rubio also mentioned the scandal, using it in his opening statement to illustrate the pitfalls of embracing government or so-called fact-checker disinformation claims. “[Fifty-one] former intelligence officials went out and said, ‘This has all of the attributes of a Russian disinformation campaign,’ and as a result, the New York Post, who posted the original story had their story censored and taken down, their account locked,” Rubio said. “[T]here was a concerted effort on the basis of that letter to silence a media outlet in the United States on something that actually turned out not to be Russian disinformation.”
How significant was this election interference? A survey commissioned by the Media Research Center found that 45.1% of Biden voters were unaware of The New York Post Hunter Biden laptop story and that 9.4% of Biden voters would have not voted for Biden if they had been aware of it. These desertions would have been enough to doom Biden in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and reelect Trump.
While discussing whether companies would censor social media users for posting memes about Trump saving ducks and cats, Sen. Cotton also pointed out that social media companies often rely on biased, leftist and even Soros-funded organizations like PolitiFact for fact-checking and beyond.
“Who is gonna draw that line? Who is gonna decide what’s playful, innocuous and harmless and what is misinformation and disinformation?” Cotton asked. The Arkansas Senator added, “And I gotta say some of the people you go to like PolitiFact and Southern Poverty Law Center don’t strike me as quite neutral sources.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that the State Department be held to account to adhere to the U.S. Constitution and that Big Tech mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called 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.
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