Nigel Farage: If Twitter wants to target conservative speech then treat it like the biased publisher it is

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/08/07/nigel-farage-if-twitter-wants-
to-target-conservative-speech-then-treat-it-like-biased-publisher-it-
is.html

The big tech giants are moving fast against the political right, the
libertarian radicals, and those walking away from the Democrat Party in
the United States. The same applies in my country, the United Kingdom,
too.

Over the weekend we saw Candace Owens, a strong, young, black woman
suspended from Twitter for daring to point out the allegedly algorithmic
hypocrisy of Twitter by replacing the word “white” with “Jewish” in a
series of tweets modeled on those by New York Times editor Sarah Jeong.

While the social media giant quickly backtracked, the same cannot be said
for its treatment of right-wingers or globalist opponents in other
regards.

Recently we discovered that activists, politicians, and even political
party leaders were being shadow banned by Twitter -- meaning that their
accounts or their tweets were not immediately searchable, unlike those of
their left-wing counterparts.

Twitter’s response to the allegation was the bizarre statement: "People
are asking us if we shadow ban. We do not…” followed by: “You are always
able to see the tweets from accounts you follow (although you may have to
do more work to find them, like go directly to their profile)."

If that’s not shadow banning, I don’t know what is.

Are we going to stand idly by as friends, allies, or even political
enemies have their speech curtailed or their lives threatened by these
modern publishers? Or are we going to demand that they can only have it
one way or another?

And while many on the libertarian right and within the conservative
movement have their issues with Alex Jones and InfoWars, this week’s
announcement by YouTube, Facebook, Apple, and Spotify represents a
concerted effort of proscription and censorship that could just as soon
see any of us confined to the dustbin of social media history.

These platforms that claim to be “open” and in favor of “free speech” are
now routinely targeting -- whether by human intervention or not -- the
views and expressions of conservatives and anti-globalists.

This is why they no longer even fit the bill of “platforms.” They are
publishers in the same way we regard news outlets as publishers. They may
use more machine learning and automation, but their systems clearly take
editorial positions. We need to hold them to account in the same way we do
any other publisher.

Just as you cannot libel someone on the pages of the Wall Street Journal,
if the Silicon Valley cartel wants to act like a publisher, they should
have to assume the same burden.

If someone -- anyone -- publicly defames me on Twitter, why isn’t Twitter
accountable for publishing damaging untruths?

If the glorification of terrorism, or calls to violence are spread on
Facebook or YouTube -- perhaps we need to ensure they, as any book
publisher would be for instance, are liable for such content?

After all, in banning people like Jones, or even more farcically, Candace
Owens, aren’t these new media publishers trying to tell us that they can,
do, and will take firm action against this sort of thing? Unless they’re
admitting it is mercurial, or that there may be double standards at play,
then we should expect no less of Antifa-linked accounts, or ISIS-linked
accounts, or even accounts belonging to left-wing activists (who often
masquerade as journalists) who routinely libel public figures on the
right, or worse, cause them to be harassed and attacked.

The conversation surrounding whether or not these utilities are “private
companies who can make their own decisions” is becoming irrelevant as they
tighten their stranglehold on public discourse.

The most avowed First Amendment, free speech defenders must surely be on
the side of those -- like me -- who believe it is not within the gift of
corporations to decide what is acceptable speech or not, especially when
they harvest and sell data about all of us en masse as the underlying
business model.

This is no longer up to them. It is up to us. Are we going to stand idly
by as friends, allies, or even political enemies have their speech
curtailed or their lives threatened by these modern publishers? Or are we
going to demand that they can only have it one way or another?

That they cannot profess to be neutral, open platforms while being
illiberal, dictatorial, and hiding behind the visage of a private
corporation (which are more often than not in bed with governments around
the world at the very highest levels).

This isn’t capitalism. It’s corporatism.

This isn’t “liberal democracy” as they keep pretending.

It’s autocracy.

That’s why I believe we urgently need to prosecute this issue in the
public square and campaign for a social media bill of rights in our
respective countries. And for those that don’t take issue with the latest
censorship of right-wingers by big social media -- unless we take a stand
now, who knows where it could end.


--
Donald J. Trump, 304 electoral votes to 227, defeated compulsive liar in
denial Hillary Rodham Clinton on December 19th, 2016. The clown car
parade of the democrat party ran out of gas and got run over by a Trump
truck.

Congratulations President Trump. Thank you for cleaning up the disaster
of the Obama presidency.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp.

ObamaCare is a total 100% failure and no lie that can be put forth by its
supporters can dispute that.

Obama jobs, the result of ObamaCare. 12-15 working hours a week at minimum
wage, no benefits and the primary revenue stream for ObamaCare. It can't
be funded with money people don't have, yet liberals lie about how great
it is.

Obama increased total debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion in the eight
years he was in office, and sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood queer
liberal democrat donors.