(Headline USA) Big Tech companies censored criticisms of President Joe Biden more than 600 times over the past two years, according to a new study by Free Speech America’s Media Research Center.
The group studied all of the deleted social media accounts and posts, including those who were given “warning labels” and stories that users were not allowed to comment on or share, between March 2020 and March 2022 and found that an overwhelming number were biased toward Biden.
In total, Big Tech censored content in favor of Biden 646 times. Of those cases, 140 had to do with the New York Post’s bombshell report about Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, which Twitter and Facebook banned from their websites right before the 2020 presidential election.
The platforms also removed 232 posts about Biden’s inappropriate behavior with women and children. In one example, a user shared a photo of Biden kissing a little girl on the lips and said, “Find someone who kisses you the way Joe Biden kisses his granddaughter.” Facebook removed the post for violating community standards on “nudity or sexual activity.”
Big Tech also went after posts quoting Biden’s own words. In one example, conservative outlet Breaking 911 posted a picture on Instagram quoting Biden about COVID-19 vaccines, saying, “Freedom! … I have the freedom to kill you with my COVID. No – I mean, come on! Freedom?!” The post was removed for promoting “violence and incitement.”
MRC logged more than 3,600 overall cases of censorship against conservative outlets, people, or posts across multiple social media platforms. The most censored topics included discussions regarding elections, COVID-19, climate change, and race.
The report comes at the same time billionaire Elon Musk reached a deal with Twitter to take the company private, which could be a step away from Big Tech’s habitual censorship. Musk has blasted the platform for silencing free speech and refusing to be transparent about its content moderation policies.
On Monday, Twitter’s board of directors agreed unanimously to sell the company to Musk for $44 billion after he secured funding for the deal. He said he intends to make the platform “an inclusive arena for free speech” in which people “are able to speak freely within the bounds of the law.”
