Big tech manipulating the news to help Democrats?

Miranda Divine:

As the war on conservative voices online reaches fever pitch in the run-up to November’s presidential election, Silicon Valley’s oligarchy finally was called to account Wednesday on ­Capitol Hill.

“Big Tech is out to get conservatives” Ohio Republican Jim Jordan told the bosses of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple. “That’s not a suspicion, that’s not a hunch. That’s a fact.”

Then he laid out a litany of censorship atrocities in a blistering opening statement before the congressional antitrust panel.

They included:

• Google removing conservative Web site Breitbart from its search results.
• Amazon’s video site Twitch suspending President Trump’s account “after he raises concerns about defunding the police.”
• Facebook removing posts from Trump’s re-election campaign.
•  Amazon temporarily banning an e-book critical of coronavirus lockdowns written by conservative commentator Alex Berenson.
• Amazon charity site Amazon Smile “won’t let you give to the [pro-life, pro-marriage] Family Research Council . . . but you can give to Planned Parenthood.”
• Facebook admitting to banning pro-life advertisements in 2018 during Ireland’s abortion referendum.
•  Former Facebook employees admitting to Gizmodo that the social-media behemoth routinely suppresses conservative views.
•  Google and YouTube censoring content that conflicts with World Health Organization recommendations.

“Think about that,” said Jordan. “They can lie for China. They can shill for China. But you say something against them, you get censored.”

Then of course there is Twitter. CEO Jack Dorsey was absent from the hearing, despite an invitation, but that didn’t stop Jordan from excoriating the social-media giant.

He said Twitter “shadow-banned” four conservative members of Congress two years ago: Jordan and fellow Republicans Matt Gaetz, Devin Nunes and Mark Meadows.

“What did Mr. Dorsey tell us? ‘It was just a glitch in our algorithm’ . . .

“We’ve heard that excuse time and time again.”

Then he listed the times in the past several weeks that Twitter has censored President Trump’s tweets by affixing warning labels to them.

For instance, Twitter labeled as “abusive” a Trump tweet last month that read: “There will never be an “Autonomous Zone” in Washington, D.C., as long as I’m your President. If they try they will be met with serious force!”

While Twitter didn’t appear on Capitol Hill, in Israel’s Knesset, a Twitter spokeswoman during a hearing on ­anti-Semitism Wednesday was grilled about political bias.

She was asked why tweets from President Trump have been censored but not tweets from Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling for the genocide of Jews and the elimination of Israel.

World leaders indulging in “foreign-policy saber-rattling on military and economic issues are generally not in violation of our Twitter rules,” the spokeswoman said.

By contrast, she said Trump’s tweet violated Twitter’s policies “regarding the glorification of violence based on the historical context of the last line of that tweet and the risk that it could possibly inspire harm.”

Which is clear as mud....

While the hearings are exposing the corruption of the news by big tech, they are not doing anything at this point to stop it.   There is no fairness doctrine being imposed on those who try to influence the election by suppressing conservative speech.