Monje insisted that Twitter “does not use political viewpoints, perspectives or party affiliation to make any decisions, whether related to automatically ranking content on our service or how we develop or enforce our rules.”
‘Why does this only seem to happen to conservatives?’
Though Konzelman told the subcommittee he isn’t alleging formal collusion, he noted that free speech automatically becomes restricted when certain worldviews are preferred. “No coordinated communication or agreement” is necessary among social media and cable media, he says, “because they are universally progressive in their orientation, political beliefs and worldview.”
Konzelman posed the question: “Why does this only seem to happen to conservatives?”
Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz, chair of the subcommittee, said, “If we have tech companies using the powers of monopoly to censor political speech, I think that raises real antitrust issues.”
But Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono, the subcommittee’s top Democrat, said claims of bias consist of “nothing more than a mix of anecdotal evidence…and a failure to understand the companies’ algorithms and content moderation practices.” She added, “We cannot allow the Republican party to harass tech companies into weakening content moderation policies that already fail to remove hateful, dangerous and misleading content.”
In a statement to the Hollywood Reporter, Cary Solomon, the other co-writer and co-director of Unplanned, said, “It is a sad time we live in when corporations can remove individuals’ freedom of speech at will. When did we empower these corporations to have such authority? More importantly, why do we empower them to do so?”
Unplanned hasn’t experienced any problems on Facebook, Konzelman noted. On that social media platform, “our exposure exploded,” he said. “And we credit this unrestricted access with much of the film’s success, highlighting the importance of access to social media.”
Konzelman ended his prepared remarks to Congress by saying, “If social media is allowed to presumptively and preemptively dismiss conservative thought as controversial, divisive or ‘too sensitive’…then that is what they will continue to do. If they are allowed to apply their own broadly drawn ‘guidelines’ to dismiss one side of controversial issues—the side they don’t agree with—and do so with impunity? Then they will do so. It’s all too easy to label conservative thought as controversial or divisive, dismiss it as ‘contrary to our guidelines’ or roll out the dreaded phrase ‘hate speech.’”
He concluded, “In a digital age, exclusion from the digital arena isn’t just discriminatory. It’s the most insidiously effective form of censorship imaginable.”
