Big Tech censorship of conservative speech continues.
In January, YouTube, a Google subsidiary, banned The Epoch Times from earning money off its videos. Stephen Gregory, publisher of The Epoch Times, said, “This is the latest example of big tech suppression of free speech, a step on the road to communist-style censorship” (FreeRepublic.com, Jan. 26, 2021). “Larry Elder, a prominent, African-American conservative filmmaker who hosts a video series for The Epoch Times, confirmed during an interview with the ‘Just the News AM’ television program that the de-monetization hit him personally, reducing his income. Elder said, ‘The only answer is not to moan and whine about how unfairly we’re being treated, not to run to the government to pass more regulations. The answer is to build our own platforms. And we have been asleep at the switch’” (Just the News).
On Jan. 12, conservative commentator and Trump supporter Curt Schilling’s insurance was canceled by AIG due to his “Social Media profile” (@gehrig38, Jan. 13, 2021). Schilling, a retired major league baseball star pitcher, has been very vocal about election fraud.
On Jan. 25, Twitter locked LifeSiteNews from two of its accounts for stating that President Joe Biden’s Assistant Secretary of Health “Rachel” Levine is a man. The accounts displayed a simple message which read, “Biden names transgender ‘woman’ as Assistant Secretary of Health. ‘Rachel’ Levine is a father of two who divorced his wife in 2013 after 30 years of marriage.”
On Feb. 10, Google-owned YouTube completely removed LifeSiteNews and deleted all of its videos. LifeSiteNews is an anti-abortion Catholic organization that had 300,000 followers on YouTube.
On Feb. 11, Twitter permanently banned Project Veritas, a much hated and often maligned organization dedicated to expose misconduct and corruption in the media and liberal organizations, such as Facebook and Google (“Twitter bans,” CNN Business, Feb. 12, 2021).
On Feb. 11, Facebook-owned Instagram banned Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., nephew of former president John F. Kennedy, for “sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines.” Kennedy, founder of Children’s Health Defense, is a critic of vaccines he believes to be harmful (“Kennedy Banned,” Summit News, Feb. 11, 2021). He had 800,000 subscribers when he was de-platformed. Instagram’s censors, of course, are the world’s premier experts in medicine and have infallible knowledge of this field.
(Friday Church News Notes, February 19, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)