In an op-ed for The Hill this week, Donald Trump Jr., executive vice president of The Trump Organization, laid out the case that big tech is targeting conservatives and called for action to guard against censorship in the “modern public square.”
“As Big Tech’s censorship of conservatives becomes ever more flagrant and overt, the old arguments about protecting the sanctity of the modern public square are now invalid,” writes Trump. “Our right to freely engage in public discourse through speech is under sustained attack, necessitating a vigorous defense against the major social media and internet platforms.”
Trump then provides a series of examples of the kinds of tactics used to silence or subvert conservative speech, including so-called “shadowbans” on Facebook and Twitter, for which Trump links to Breitbart stories about conservative educational group PragerU’s reach being temporarily reduced 99.9% on Facebook due to an “employee error” and an explanation of how shadowbanning works on Twitter. Trump also cites “demonetization of YouTube videos,” citing a story about liberal Dave Rubin and others seeing their videos targeted. Republican candidates, like Marsha Blackburn, have also seen their ads pulled “at the critical junctures of election campaigns,” notes Trump. “[T]he list of violations against the online practices and speech of conservatives is long,” he wrote, linking to a Breitbart story on his interview with Tucker Carlson about the issue.
Trump then describes his personal experience with apparent censorship by Instagram: “I certainly had my suspicions confirmed when Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, ‘accidentally’ censored a post I made regarding the Jussie Smollett hoax, which consequently led to me hearing from hundreds of my followers about how they’ve been having problems seeing, liking or being able to interact with my posts. Many of them even claimed that they’ve had to repeatedly refollow me, as Instagram keeps unfollowing me on their accounts.”- READ MORE