Harmeet K. Dhillon Appears on ‘FOX and Friends’ To Discuss Mitch McConnell and Big Tech
According to Dhillon:
Thanks, Ainsley. Well, what I make of that is that, the second most powerful Republican in the United States was frozen from Twitter for several days. His campaign account was frozen. It was only threats of significant monetary sanctions that got it unfrozen which is not a tool that most of us have. In fact, not even a tool that most Republican candidates have or disfavored democratic candidates. I think this is very dangerous going into the 2020 election. We saw these Big Tech companies use similar censorship methods in the 2018 election against conservatives such as Marsha Blackburn in Tennessee, refusing to run some of her ads. Facebook has actually refused to run some of the president’s ads. And while we don’t want to mandate that particular channels carry all ads or have equal access, if they violate their own consumer promises to sell an ad or if they use this type of a selective censorship to do a contribution in kind, then I think that can really affect the outcome of elections. I think it is very dangerous. We need to look what is going on here.
Absolutely. So, technology evolved so fast that we’re no longer in the era where people are going to be seeing these ads so much on broadcast television. Now a significant portion of that campaign messaging and spending happens on social media platforms. What we have seen, I have personally seen anecdotally here in California is that right before an election on the Republican side, somebody trying to run an ad as competitor or even for reelection that had their ads frozen or they can’t buy the ad, they get an error message but that doesn’t happen to the Democratic opponent. So, one is it selectively silenced opposed to other. And in this specific case of Mitch McConnell, it was even more insidious. He was trying to draw attention through threats of violence against him. He was blocked from doing that at the same time that Twitter allowed ‘Massacre Mitch’ and other violent hashtags.
Yeah, #AssassinateTrump, I mean, there are so many like this. So, you know, Peter Fonda is still on there, after having suggested that Barron Trump, the president’s adolescent son, be thrown into a cage with pedophiles. Louis Farrakhan was not suspended by Twitter and on and on and on. So, this selective bias is actually, you know, it’s obviously awful as a baseline. But, when it comes to election and campaign speech, these big companies, two or three companies could affect the outcomes of close elections. That is not acceptable in America.
It’s nonsense. I will go far to say that’s a lie, Ainsley. They do not censor similar content when posted by liberals. I can tell you that my client, Andy Ngo, who was assaulted in Portland, has received death threats through Twitter. He reports them; Twitter does nothing to take those down. So, it depends on who you are. It is okay to attack and it’s okay to have hashtags that say #AssasinateThisPerson, but it’s not okay for that own person to report those threats on Twitter. That is ridiculous. No one is buying that that is an even-handed application of their so-called objective criteria. Thanks Ainsley.
