Project Veritas has published a video testimony of former Facebook contract worker Zach McElroy that proves aggressive censorship of politically conservative content. The following is excerpted from “Hidden Cameras,” PJMedia, June 23, 2020: “Hidden cameras show Facebook contractors bragging about deleting MAGA accounts or pro-Trump sentiment because of political bias. ‘It’s a very progressive company who’s very anti-MAGA,’ says Steve Grimmett, team lead for content review, on hidden camera. ‘I think they’re very biased with who they protect,’ adds Daniel Will, content moderator. ‘Facebook shadowbans and they say they don’t but it’s clear that people’s content don’t come up because it’s been de-filtered off the queue. They’re doing something but trying to pretend like they’re not,’ he said in what he thought was a private conversation. ‘To me censorship online is one of the biggest issues facing us in the lead up to the 2020 election,’ said whistleblower McElroy. The video follows McElroy around Facebook as he asks employees on content moderation teams about the bias. He asks Robert Miller, ‘You know that civic harassment queue that we’ve been in lately? Is it just me or is it all Republicans in there?’ Miller replies, ‘Yeah, it’s all Republicans. But a lot of it comes off Trump’s page specifically.’ Other hidden video shows other social media content moderators admitting to deleting anything pro-Trump. ‘If a Trump post was to come up and it was promoting Trump, then I can take that down,’ said Lara Kontakos. ‘Then I feel that would be really impactful.’ In a later clip, Kontakos was heard saying she deletes ‘all Republicans. If someone is wearing a MAGA hat I am going to delete them for terrorism.’ McElroy has started a GoFundMe for himself in the aftermath of this story to help with the difficulty he will surely face in legal battles after breaking the nondisclosure agreement he had to sign at Facebook.”
(Friday Church News Notes, July 3, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)