Breaking News: Tech Giants are Biased

The Wall Street Journal reported last week, “Tech Firms Face Political Bias Accusations.” The article talked about how Google, Twitter and Facebook are undergoing scrutiny for political bias affecting content, search outcomes, hiring and are “dismissive of the free-speech rights of conservatives.”

Several videos have surfaced that make it clear, in case anyone needed video proof, that the tech giants are led by left-leaning titans that have contempt for at least a half of their U.S. customer base.

[A] contentious hearing, the latest such congressional event in recent months, could drive calls for stricter regulation of Google…and other big tech companies and stoke concerns of their political bias—including accusations that such bias influences content on their platforms—in the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections.

 

Meanwhile, an audio recording of a Google internal meeting, surfaced this week, could add to the company’s headaches. The recording, from earlier this year, shows numerous employees raising objections to the company’s sponsorship this year of the Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC, a high-profile annual gathering for politicians and pundits. Some Google employees questioned whether the firm was aligning itself with “Holocaust deniers” and engaging in “collaboration.”

The article caught my eye for two reasons as I was catching up with news over the weekend.

First, I wrote a post last week about the Kavanaugh debacle, saying, “The left is in a rage over Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016.” I think I was stating a reasonable observation, if not a fact. I hear this over and over from my friends and family who were Clinton supporters, to the extent they are still talking to me.

I tried to “boost” the post on Facebook; this is where you pay a few extras bucks to reach a bigger audience. Yes, it pains the Center to be funding the Big Tech world but that is where, for now, Americans are talking to each other.

My “boost” request was denied. That offending sentence was deemed unworthy. (This happens to the Center with some regularity.)

It would be nice conservatives were not funding Facebook et. al. but what is the alternative? I was talking to a group of interns this summer about this dilemma. Is regulation really a good way to go? Can’t we come up with market solutions to this significant problem?

Here are a few ideas: stop taking free stuff like gmail where you are the product. I recently ordered Reagan.com private email. Now I just have to figure out how to use it! I also use the web browser Opera which supposedly does not spy on me. And I heard a good report on search privacy by Molly Wood (APM Media); she uses a site called www.DuckDuckGo, “the search engine that doesn’t track you.” So, I am going to check that out.

The second reason the Journal article caught my eye is this: a group of conservative employees have hired a lawyer. This could be huge. Please, tell all!

Harmeet Dhillon, an attorney representing a group of conservative Google employees claiming employment discrimination by the company, directed lawmakers to media reports concerning its alleged blacklisting of phrases, articles and websites, and the blocking of conservative YouTube videos.

“Big Tech has become an insular fortress of thought coercion and vindictive behavioral control,” she said.

Yes, and it begs for a market solution, ideally not regulation but given the monopoly enjoyed by Facebook and the ubiquitous nature of the giants, even the ones with competitors, this one is going to be a puzzle. I will get the Center interns working on it!

Now I’m going to post this on Facebook.