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Theres a divide on the political right concerning whether Google and the social media companies are suppressing or censoring their views, and, indeed, promote values antithetical to free markets and a free society. Many social conservatives argue they do and demand government action.

The more libertarian-leaning argue that the charge of bias is not clear and, in any case, using government against these companies infringes on economic liberty and will be used by the left when it has power.

Both sides have legitimate points, but a nuanced understanding of the situation points to an opportunity for friends of freedom.

The leadership of the aforementioned companies and a good portion of employees are certainly more liberal, if not hardcore left. In the current primary season, high-salaried engineers and programmershave been big donors to socialists Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

But the real issue is not just about political views, but rather the legality of tech giants actions. Under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, social media companies are treated as platforms that third parties can use for posting content or communicating with others. Those companies are not treated as publishers like newspapers, meaning they are not subject to lawsuits for materials posted on their platforms in the same way a newspaper or a television news outlet would be.

However, in order for platforms to enjoy the protections of Section 230, they must not prohibit political and other kinds of legal speech. If they do, then they are essentially publishers who must be held to the same standards applied to other media outlets.

Although platforms like Facebook deny that they pick and choose the material they permit on their sites, theres evidence that many tech giants, often in subtle ways, do just that. For example, PragerU has fought ongoing battles with YouTube because the video platform has taken down numerous videos posted by PragerU, despite the fact they are not obscene, advocate for violence, or harass others. Twitter has been accused of shadow banning conservatives, that is, not suspending their accounts but using certain techniques to prevent their posts from being widely viewed.

Theres also no question that leaders of numerous tech giants have been caught advocating for left-wing causes or admitting that they desire to use their companies to aid left-leaning politicians. For instance, a Project Veritashidden camera video caught Jen Gennai, Googles head of responsible innovation, taking exception to Warrens call to break up Big Tech companies like hers because the resulting smaller companies who dont have the same resources we do will be charged with preventing the next Trump situation and thus presumably be in a weaker position to do so. Gennai also spoke of Google manipulating its search engine to weed out algorithmic unfairness.

Numerous other examples offer prima facie evidence for examining whether these companies are really publishers and should be treated as such.

Some lawmakers on the right would go even further. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) promotes legislation that would require such companies to conform to best business practices with periodic government reviews. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) would remove Section 230 protection for companies that cannot demonstrate to federal regulators that they are politically neutral.

If social media companies are frightened by the prospect of being beholden to government regulators with their liberty limited, they should be! And now they know how the rest of us feel about the policies of the leftist candidates that they support would unleash on us all!

Attacks on these companies also come from the left, with critics calling for changes in Section 230 to force them to engage in more censorship of what they call hate speech and fake news. Conservatives should be concerned about this since they are the prime voices the left would silence.

Some conservatives say demanding platforms act in a more balanced manner is not enough. They say antitrust laws should be used against these companies and that they should be broken up into smaller businesses, a view many on the left agree with.

Although its understandable why some would take this approach, using antitrust laws is generally against free-market principles and should be avoided whenever possible, a position the political right has rightly espoused since the days of Ronald Reagan. Putting that sort of power in the hands of the national government would be far too dangerous over the long term.

Instead of attempting to use government to punish businesses the right fearshowever reasonable that fear might beit should embrace free-market values while demanding that tech giants act as truly open platforms if they wish to enjoy legal protections that publishers are not eligible for.

Conservatives and libertarians should also encourage these companies and their talented professionals to realize that they have prospered because of the free market, not in spite of it. Its Americas market economy that allowed companies such as Google and Facebook to innovate, create a valuable, highly desired product, and to revolutionize the world we live in and the way we all communicate.

Keeping government from controlling tech giants is going to be especially important in the years and decades to come, as many of these businesses and their subsidiaries are investing in cutting-edge exponential technologies like AI, robots, biohacking, and nanotech, which have the potential to cure diseases and raise living standards for all.

Those on the right should call out Big Tech for their bias, yes, but they should also praise them for their remarkable achievements and appeal to them to use their resources and talented staffs to continue making the world a better, more prosperous place for everyone using technology and the free market and by rejecting the socialist principles that caused unprecedented chaos, destruction, and misery throughout the twentieth century.

Tech companies should stand up for an open society and open exchange of ideas, not censorship and the centralization of power. Its not only in their own best interests but also in the best interests of the entire world.

Edward Hudgins, Ph.D., is research director at The Heartland Institute and an expert on technology policy. He can be reached at ehudgins@heartland.org.

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The Right Should Challenge Tech Giants to Side with Liberty and Reject Censorship - CNSNews.com

As reports of new coronavirus infections soar, its becoming clear that Chinese government leaders have been putting their political interests ahead of public health. This is not a surprise but a long-established pattern.

In recent days, medical experts have found evidence that the origin of the outbreak was not a seafood market in Wuhan, as the Chinese government initially reported. That evidence also suggests that the first human infections occurred in November, if not earlier, rather than in early December.

Local officials in Wuhan quashed the first reports of a SARS-like illness in the city in December, in part to maintain a positive environment for a series of political meetings. Even now, there is reason to believe that the scale of infections is greater than the official figures, and censors are continuing to delete investigative reports by local journalists raising those concerns.

Analysis of leaked government censorship directives dating to 2013 by Freedom House shows that suppression of public health information is commonplace. In 2016 and 2017, for example, public health and safety were among the two most censored categories of breaking news.

Given the rapid spread of the virus and the enormous economic effects expected, censorship and propaganda are certain to continue and to extend beyond Chinas borders as the regime seeks to protect its hold on power and international reputation. While Chinese authorities assure domestic and international audiences that their efforts will contain the outbreak, censors are busily deleting social media posts and journalists reporting that contradict the official narrative.

Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a nonprofit organization with extensive contacts in China, has already tracked more than 300 cases of internet users who were penalized for sharing unofficial information on social media.

Beyond domestic censorship, the Chinese government is likely to use its multipronged apparatus to influence foreign reporting. Localized internet shutdowns, arrests of citizen journalists and expulsions of foreign correspondents are standard tactics to halt the flow of information to international audiences. These measures may be supplemented with more aggressive actions against foreign media, like harassment from Chinese diplomats or cyberattacks against critical outlets. Such efforts once mostly focused on overseas Chinese media have been deployed increasingly against mainstream news services in recent years.

The governments propaganda system can also readily mobilize state media as well as more covert channels to amplify its message globally. The hundreds of diaspora outlets in 61 countries, many with a track record of uncritical pro-Beijing reporting, that participated in a state-sponsored summit for Chinese-language media in October will face implicit or explicit political and economic pressure to adhere to coverage by official Chinese sources. Already, pro-Beijing outlets in the United States are parroting the official line, while Chinese state media accounts on Facebook and Twitter have spread proven fabrications.

Global disinformation campaigns on social media platforms could also be deployed. Since 2017, Russian-style disinformation tactics have been used to smear the governments perceived enemies such as Hong Kong protesters, Uighur Muslims and Chinese democracy activists on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, which are blocked in China. Similar campaigns could be launched, for example, to discredit Chinese medical professionals who challenge the official version of events. Chinese-owned social media platforms such as WeChat, which is popular among Chinese speakers around the world, are a potential hotbed even for unintentional misinformation.

To counter the effects of Beijings censorship and propaganda related to the coronavirus, American public health agencies should make a conscious effort to relay critical updates to Chinese-speaking communities through both privately owned and government-funded Chinese-language news services. U.S. officials should also protest any media interference by Chinese diplomats and security agents, and provide emergency funding to expand the capacity of online censorship circumvention tools to address demand from users in China trying to access and share uncensored information on the global internet.

During any public health crisis, there is a legitimate concern that false information from any source could result in panic. But censorship of credible and important information that happens to make the Chinese government look bad could be equally harmful.

Medical experts report that the wave of infections has not yet reached its peak. In the coming months, transparency about the coronavirus and efforts to combat it will be critical to reducing its spread.

Chinese media controls have always had deeply corrosive effects at home and abroad, but their potential threat to human life if this outbreak becomes a pandemic would be devastating.

Sarah Cook is a senior research analyst at Freedom House, director of its China Media Bulletin and author of Beijings Global Megaphone: The Expansion of Chinese Communist Party Media Influence since 2017.

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China's media censorship is making the coronavirus outbreak even more lethal - Grand Island Independent

China's Great Firewall -- the website restrictions that turn the Chinese internet into more of a national intranet -- prevents Chinese browsers from accessing Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, you name it.Most Western news and opinion websites are blocked. The National Interest sure is blocked.

Consumer advice website Comparitech offers a nifty testing service that lets you see just what is blocked in China and where, with servers testing access at five different locations across the country. Comparitech is, of course, blocked in China. Circle of life.

The Great Firewall can't keep news from leaking out of China, and it's not clear how good it is at stopping news from leaking in. Much more effective at controlling the conversation is China's development of "national champion" netware. You may scoop a second-hand copy of the Wall Street Journal out of a US embassy recycling bin, but if you try to tell anyone what you read, good luck.

If blocking the news is a blunt instrument, preventing its being shared is a fine art.Netware providers like WeChat (messaging), Sina Weibo (microblogging), and Youku (video hosting) are all monitored by government censors. Even more effectively, they monitor themselves.

If you're frustrated by the idea that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have "community standards" that limit what you're able to share on their platforms, don't even think about China.American netware companies may sometimes get annoyingly political, but at least their policies are ultimately driven by commercial considerations.China's netware platforms are directly beholden to the government -- and the Communist Party.

And so when Wuhan ophthalmologist Dr. Li Wenliang privately warned friends on WeChat of an unusual cluster of SARS-like cases last December, he was pulled in for questioning by the police.So much for private messages. Tragically, Dr. Li died early this morning, February 7 in China, at just 33 years old. He was a victim of the coronavirus he attempted to warn others about.

There was no blocking that news on Weibo; some stories are too big even for China's notoriously zealous censors. Chinese netizens must also be aware that most of the world's airlines have stopped flying to China, and that they are, in effect, caught in a 1.4 billion person quarantine. How they think about that, though, is ripe for official exploitation.

China's twenty-first-century propagandists can't easily write the news the way their twentieth-century forebears could, but they can more effectively shape it. Criticism of the government's handling of the coronavirus outbreak can be muted, while criticism of foreign governments' travel bans is amplified.

One favorite Chinese propaganda tactic is to compare the coronavirus death toll to American deaths from seasonal flu. Another is to link flight suspensions to the U.S.-China trade war. And inevitably, patriotic Chinese netizens roll out accusations of racism -- and have their charges amplified by official endorsement.

Opinions like these can be (and are) shared on Western social media, but they don't get very far, because commercially-driven netware optimization algorithms correctly determine that most people aren't very interested to hear them. But in China, where the propagation of opinions on social media platforms is more influenced by official ideology than commercial considerations, baseless charges of Western racism are amplified and spread.

We all live in social media bubbles. That's a fact of contemporary online life. But while we worry about how netware may polarize public opinion, China is using netware to shape it. When it comes to politics, that's a problem, but probably a manageable one. When it comes to public health, it just might cost you your life.

Salvatore Babones is an adjunct scholar at the Centre for Independent Studies and an associate professor at the University of Sydney.

Read more:
Can China's Internet Censors Block The Coronavirus? - The National Interest Online

Want to see photos of the urban renewal campaign in Paris? Mayor Anne Hidalgo is taking the perfect approach: Instead of a competition that awarded assets to those who offered the biggest check, we decided to make the competition about the most innovative and interesting project proposals, projects that would be eco-minded and of use to the general public. Yes, yes, yes. More of this, please. (CNN)

The Silicon Valley Economy Is Here. And Its a Nightmare. Low pay, soaring rents, and cities littered with e-scooters. Welcome to the future. (The New Republic)

Related: The Democrats Screwed America With an App No One Asked For. (Vice)

I mean, I dont know how much we can trust in what US Magazine prints, but they say that Scientology is in crisis, membership is dwindling, theyre being exposed. andI want to believe. (Celebitchy)

Women and People of Color Still Underrepresented Behind the Scenes, Study Says. (Variety)

What Is There to Learn From The Goop Lab? (Vogue)

Do words have no meaning anymore? Are critical thinking skills extinct? Dont answer those. Anyway. Madonna is shouting censorship because the venue she was performing at shut down the lights and sound at curfew. So not so much censorship, yes? (Dlisted)

Those Slytherins are bad news, man: Snakes could be the original source of the new coronavirus outbreak in China. (The Conversation)

The Ghost Hunter. For hundreds of years, there were rumors of a shipwrecked treasure on the Oregon coast. No one found anything, until Cameron La Follette began digging. (Atavist Magazine)

Lainey has an update on the Justin Timberlake/Jessica Simpson Betgate, which she ends with Justin Timberlake is always getting a pass. which, sigh, thats true. (Lainey Gossip)

The rift between Joanna Russ and Ursula K. LeGuin. (The New Yorker)

A good piece about Bs Ivy Park collection and the way it was rolled out to celebrities and influencers and how the very concept of streetwear could be considered an anti-capitalist enterprise. (Bitch Media)

Vaping is a health crisis thats only just begun. (Intelligencer)

The Rejection Lab. What can researching human responses to rejection tell us about ourselves? (Medium)

These Fake Local News Sites Have Confused People For Years. We Found Out Who Created Them. (Buzzfeed News)

A New Experiment Hopes to Solve Quantum Mechanics Biggest Mystery. (Smithsonian Mag)

I love Billie Eilish, but I was ready for this backlash. I mean, for one, her family is super connected in the music industry, so claiming that she just came out of nowhere is a little bit disingenuous. However, give the girl some slack. (Vulture)

Sophia isnt a poetry reader, but narfnas review of the late Mary Olivers Felicity inspired her. "Now that Im writing about my discomfort with these poems, I kind of appreciate that Oliver is able to make me uneasy-especially when it comes to parts of my life where Ive probably built up some walls." How often do you challenge yourself with a book? (Cannonball Read 12)

Goodnight

Ursula is a Staff Contributor for Pajiba. You can follow her on Twitter.

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Censorship Does Not Mean What You Think It Means, Madonna - Pajiba

US senators have demanded that Twitter ban the accounts of two top Iranian officials, or face the wrath of US sanctions, in a thinly veiled threat to nave free speech-believers who might fall out of favor with Washington next.

Despite an Obama-era provision exempting certain internet platforms including social media from a raft of sanctions imposed on Iran, the four Republican lawmakers insisted in a joint letter that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif enjoyed no such protection, demanding that Twitter ban them immediately.

Twitter is aware of these accounts and their links to the Iranian regime, yet continues to provide [them] Internet-based communications services, the senators said, calling it a sanctionable offense.

The senators argued that by allowingIranian officials to share their countrys position with the rest of the world, Twitter was providing a service in violation of an executive order signed by President Trump last June prohibiting Americans from any exchange with Tehran.

The letter was signed by Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), all of whom have taken a hard line on the Islamic Republic. Twitter has yet to respond to the blatant demand of selective censorship.

The threat follows a concerted campaign across several social media platforms last month to purge dozens of accounts affiliated with sanctioned individuals and entities including Syrian, Iranian and Venezuelan officials, as well as average citizens in some cases hardlywithout anypressure from Washington.

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Free speech only for Americans! US senators threaten Twitter with sanctions unless it censors Iranian leadership - RT