Big Tech made big promises this summer, with the biggest platforms’ leaders pledging under oath before congressional lawmakers in July their platforms would refrain from engaging in election interference on behalf of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
“I certainly do not want our platforms to be run in a way that has any ideological bias… That would be unacceptable in our operation,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the House Judiciary’s subcommittee on antitrust.
Republicans on the committee, however, remained skeptical of big tech’s promises they had heard many times before.
“Unfortunately, I don’t have much faith in the CEOs’ promises to not interfere in this year’s election on behalf of Joe Biden,” Florida Rep. Greg Steube told The Federalist following the hearing. “Despite abundantly clear evidence, not one of the CEOs in yesterday’s hearing admitted that they are biased against conservative media. If they aren’t honest about it now, why should we trust them to be transparent or balanced during a major election year?”
Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan offered a simpler response when asked how much faith he held in Big Tech’s commitments: “Zero.” Jordan was also the most vocal critic of big tech’s neutrality pledge before the hearing had even concluded.
“I’ll just get to the chase, Big Tech’s out to get conservatives,” Jordan declared before blasting Twitter’s absence from the proceedings. “That’s not a suspicion. That’s not a hunch. That’s a fact.”
Sure enough, two and a half months later, Facebook and Twitter’s blocking of news about Hunter Biden’s corruption involving his father, according to newly discovered emails, these lawmakers’ skepticism was well-founded.
On Wednesday, the New York Post published a bombshell report indicating that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden repeatedly lied about never discussing his son Hunter Biden’s potentially criminal overseas business venture with him “or with anyone else” while Joe Biden was vice president.
Emails obtained by the Post, however, show correspondence between Ukrainian advisor Vadym Pozharskyi and Hunter proving that Hunter actually introduced Joe Biden to Pozharskyi.
“Thank you for inviting me to DC and giving me an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together,” Pozharskyi wrote. At the time, Hunter Biden was raking in upwards of $50,000 a month in excess compensation for serving on the board of Burisma while his father served as the “public face” of White House policy towards Ukraine.
Less than a year later, as the Obama administration’s point person on Ukraine, Joe Biden pressured for the firing of the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden’s firm.
After legacy media completely ignored the major revelations in the Post story, with the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN refusing to commit a single story to the bombshell report, Facebook and Twitter escalated the election interference by censoring the article.
“While I will intentionally not link to the New York Post, I want be clear that this story is eligible to be fact checked by Facebook’s third-party fact checking partners,” wrote Facebook spokesperson and former Democratic staffer Andy Stone. “In the meantime, we are reducing its distribution on our platform.”
Holy bleeping bleep. Facebook explicitly admitting it is protecting Biden — and interfering in the presidential election — by censoring media outlets and limiting discussion of today's breaking news about Biden's engagement with Burisma. https://t.co/nF07qqyc5J
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) October 14, 2020
In response to big tech’s censorship Wednesday, House Judiciary Republicans re-published the New York Post’s piece on their website.
“We know Google tried to help Hillary Clinton win in 2016. And now Facebook and Twitter are trying to help Joe Biden win in 2020,” committee ranking member Jordan told The Federalist.
Twitter has blocked users from tweeting the link to the @nypost's story on Hunter Biden.
So we put it on our website for you to read and share.
Click, share, and RT! https://t.co/tZwybnoW0e
— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) October 14, 2020
Last week, the House Judiciary Republicans released a one of two minority reports following the committee’s 15-month investigation chronicling big tech’s bias.
“Time and again, Big Tech uses its power to suppress and marginalize conservative voices,” Republicans concluded. “Evidence of both underlying bias and arbitrary censorship continues to mount, and these tendencies are shaping corporate policies and implementation.”
The report centering on platform bias was spearheaded by Jordan and signed by Republican colleagues Matt Gaetz and Greg Steube of Florida, Doug Collins of Georgia, and Ken Buck of Colorado.
