Censorship: Social Media Turns Political

Social media is transforming itself into a potent political force. Giants such as Twitter, Facebook and Google are exerting more control over content, employing stealth algorithms to censor or silence conservative voices.  There is a burgeoning backlash about the firms' dominance and influence.

Once social media was dismissed as irrelevant in the political arena.  But modern political campaigns direct their messages at their mushrooming audiences.  Barrack Obama hired an entire team of social media experts.  Hillary Clinton tagged a former Google exec as her chief technology officer.

Social media no longer takes a backseat to legacy media, including television, newspapers and radio. More people turn to social media for news.  Twitter has 157 million users.  Facebook counts 2.6 billion.  Google logs 3.5 billion searches every day.  Social media owns Americans' eyeballs.

A recent Pew Research Center report found 67 percent of all Americans report they obtain at least some of their news from social media.  TV is second with 57 percent.  And it's not just young people on social media.  One-half of Americans over 50 go to social media in search of news.

The Goliaths of social media, including Twitter, Facebook and Google, have virtual monopolies in their segments. As publicly owned companies, they theoretically have every right to foist their ideologies on Americans. However, most people are unaware the content is manipulated.

For example, enterprising undercover journalists recently exposed Twitter's use of guidelines that filtered pro-Trump posts on its site.  In addition, the reporters discovered Twitter was using a technique called "shadow banning" to hide conservative content from public view.

Twitter users were never advised of the deception until news reports shined light on the practice.  Most free speech advocates believe the social media platform should have been upfront about their ideological approach.  But Twitter is not the only social sloth in the covert censorship business. 

Google employs auto-complete algorithms designed to erase certain disparaging and offensive terms from its content.  However, the company admits it's an inexact science.  Users have no idea what is being filtered and why. The search results reflect the biases of those who wrote the algorithm.

A few years ago the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) opted to drop its antitrust lawsuit against Google despite finding its search algorithm was biased.  The exhaustive probe documented the firm promoted its own services at the top of search results to the detriment of its competitors. 

Despite the mountain of evidence, Mr. Obama's FTC dismissed the lawsuit against Google.  Surely it is coincidental that Google executives, led by parent company CEO Eric Schmidt, were frequent and large donors to Mr. Obama's presidential campaigns and Democrat causes.

If Google favored its own products and services, it raises suspicions that the company also adopts the same strategy with political candidates. As an example, the firm can rig the search results to produce the most favorable stories about a candidate to appear on the first page. 

The American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology did a study that showed the results displayed by Google influence political decisions by participants.  The research found this could tip an election by moving voters' opinions of candidates by margins ranging from 37 to 63 percent.

Another Google social media company, You Tube, has been stung with criticism too.  Media sources reported that Google had enlisted "trusted flaggers" to delete questionable video content.  It turns out one group it "entrusted" was the Southern Poverty Law Center, a controversial left-wing outfit.

SPLC promptly labeled many conservatives on YouTube as "extremists," including Dr. Ben Carson and Fox News contributors Laura Ingraham and Judge Jeanine Pirro.  However, the law center found nothing extreme about ANTIFA, a militant protest group with a record of inciting violence. 

For years Facebook has been featuring sponsored news ads in the feeds of its users.  This allowed Russian-backed firms to post fake news about Clinton and Trump on users' feeds.  Now Facebook is trying to clean up the mess it created by cracking down on deception.  But who makes that call?

A hush-hush algorithm is now trolling Facebook weeding out fake news.  Sounds like a good idea.  But the computer nerds at Facebook wrote the algorithm.  And they are mum about what kinds of items might be deemed to be inappropriate for its audience. Transparency be damned.

Why does any of this matter?  The answer is that every political campaign now uses social media to raise funds, hold virtual campaign rallies, advertise the candidates, organize volunteers and motivate voters.  It is a paradigm shift from legacy media to social media as the top election influencer.

But if that's the case, is that a good thing for America?

That question has yet to be answered.  If monopolistic social media behemoths decide to back a single candidate or ideology by censoring information, does that give voters a fair opportunity to make informed political decisions?  Americans need to start worrying about the answer.