Conservative censorship has been coming to light with each passing year, and conservatives are fed up with it. On September 17th, Free Speech America (FSA), an organization that will fight national and worldwide censorship, was launched by Media Research Center (MRC). At their launch meeting, they had Brent Bozell, founder and president of MRC, Dr. Robert Epstein, Senator Marsha Blackburn, and Kelly Shackelford speak at the launch. Brent Bozell explained that this is a multimillion-dollar organization with the backing of major conservative leaders to help to take action. One of those actions being reforming Section 230.
Section 230 is a liability protector for big tech companies. However, Bozell believes that it is too protective of big tech and keeps them from being held accountable. Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee has been in the fight for first amendment rights and reforming Section 230. “No longer will we let Big Tech hide behind these liability protections as a pretense to bully competitors or to suppress free speech,” Senator Blackburn said in previous statements. This way big tech will be held responsible for every post they censor, left leaning or right leaning. One of the points brought forth was that growth and decisions cannot be made if information is being suppressed and if dialogue cannot happen.
Dr. Robert Epstein emphasized that one of the best ways to combat censorship is by monitoring cases of censorship and then exposing them by putting them on their website, “CensorTrack.org.” The website has different categories of cases of censorship. These categories are “Tech Company Bias,” “Fact-Checker Spin,” “Censorship by Issue,” “Key Players,” and “Policy Remedies.” The hope is to gain enough critical evidence so state Attorney Generals can file against these big tech companies. Dr. Epstein said, “…you can’t break up the social media platform itself…” but by monitoring and exposing big tech, it will give the people and Attorney Generals the knowledge to take action against big tech.
Kelly Shackelford made a great point about the election. He said, “…tech companies are information highways… these companies can change the course of our elections…” Social media is where many people go to get their news, information, and social interactions. With Facebook nearing 3 billion users, Facebook has a large user base that is susceptible to whatever information is put in front of them. Facebook also has the capability of determining political preference. That paired with the ability to put whatever information in front of possibly undecided voters could sway an election. Dr. Epstein believes that an estimated 15 million votes could be shifted by big tech companies.
One of the biggest issues that is being affected by censorship is the pro-life movement. Whether it be by the government, as seen in Washington D.C. with the arrests of Students for Life members, or by big tech, the movement is the most attacked by censorship. Bozell said that “Abortion is ground zero for the left.” It would only make sense that its polar opposite, the pro-life movement, is one of the core beliefs of conservatives. The FSA website has a pro-life censorship case page under the “Censorship by Issue” panel.
Censorship is a very real and dangerous issue. If not for people like Brent Bozell, Dr. Robert Epstein, and many others fighting on the front lines, we would all be in a dark place. Our founding fathers put Free Speech as the top amendment because they knew what it was like to live in a world where people were killed for what they said. We are heading back towards those dark times; therefore, we cannot sit back and do nothing. Today, head over to “CensorTrack.org” to see what Big Tech is censoring in your life so you won’t be caught off guard.
