Americans have,
let's just say complicated
feelings about giant technology
companies.
Even as far back as the 1950s
people's trust in technology
has been trepidatious at best.
But now that more Americans
are getting their news,
essentially from social media algorithms,
how can we be sure that these
algorithms aren't biased? I mean,
how do we know that we're not
being censored by big tech?
Well, I hate to break it
to you, but we kind of are.
However,
this type of censorship
may not be as bad as it
sounds. How social media
platforms are politically biased.
Today, on Governing Goliath.
Technology has positive impact on
our lives can not be overstated.
According to this report,
when Americans were asked,
what brought them the biggest
improvement to their daily lives,
they named technology more
than any other advancement.
And as Americans think into the future,
they expect that technology
along with medical devices,
some of which I've reported on before,
will continue to have a major
impact for generations to come.
And according to this study done in 2016,
the public sees science and
technology as generally overall
positive with only 8% of
people seeing tech as a
definite negative.
But I'm pretty sure these
people are somehow linked to the
Unabomber. So
our love affair with modern
technology has been long lived,
but this relationship hasn't always
been sunshine and rainbows as this
brilliant video clip from the
computer history archives project
shows.
Keep in mind,
we were using punch cards when
this seed of mistrust was planted.
And data processing has come
a very long way since then.
You have every right to be
skeptical of modern technology,
like facial recognition
software that has a propensity
to misidentify certain groups
of innocent people as wanted
criminals.
Or say DNA mining services
that can actually get used
against you in a plethora
of ways that is just
mind boggling. But what
about social media platforms?
Are they bias?
Do they have the right to censor
content that we willingly want to
see and even search for?
What if I told you the
answer was yes, sort of.
Recent surveys have shown that
the general public has a number of
criticisms against technology and
social media companies. Last year,
a majority of Americans said
that technology companies
have far too much power
and influence while 72% said,
they believe that social media sites
intentionally censor political viewpoints
that they find objectionable,
and this by and large is a
common Republican viewpoint.
And they have every right to be skeptical.
As this story from the wall street
journal points out, Google's algorithm,
for example,
is actually living code
that evolve as bad actors,
manipulate search results and businesses
continuously try to gain their
algorithm.
The reality is misinformation
is rampant across all tech
platforms. But here's the
thing, with American politics,
this term misinformation
seems to translate into
the things that we disagree with,
or that we do not want to be
discussed in this era of alternative
facts. It can actually be kind of hard
to figure out what's real and what's well
fake.
A lot of the reasoning why some
prominent Republicans in office may feel
that there's an anti-conservative
bias against them,
started with the unilateral
ban of Alex Jones back in
2018.
If you haven't heard of him before
Alex is the sole owner and host of
a far right conspiracy theory
website called InfoWars.
He also runs several related
podcasts and YouTube channels.
At least he did before the ban.
But that's not how he makes his millions.
Alex Jones makes the bulk of his
multimillion dollar fortune off
selling protein powder and vitamin
supplements off of his website.
You heard that right.
He uses completely ridiculous
and incredibly divisive,
inflammatory conspiracy theories to sell
nutraceuticals.
And he makes upwards of
$20 million a year. Yeah.
And get this. According to
this independent testing lab,
his vitamins are so diluted
that you might as well be taking
sugar pills.
But selling watered down supplements
isn't exactly illegal. For that matter,
neither is creating and
promoting toxic fake news on the
internet.
So why did Alex suddenly get
banned on all these social media
platforms? Well, the answer
is actually quite simple.
He didn't get banned for peddling
snake oil or spreading toxic
misinformation. He got banned.
Well, I'm just going to say it.
Alex Jones got banned from
social media or being a BEEP
hole.
And many companies actually have
a written policy against that.
It's commonly referred to as their
hate speech policy or as I like to
call it, their anti BEEP hole policy.
Within their community
standards is where it resides.
And these standards are by and
large very similar across platforms
because they tend to conform to
our social norms for a baseline
level of basic human decency.
Facebook defines hate speech as
a direct attack on people based
on race, ethnicity, national
origin, religious affiliation,
sexual orientation, cast,
gender, gender identity,
and serious disease or disability.
And Facebook actually has
different tiers within its anti
BEEP hole policy.
Posts categorized at the very
most severe of these tiers.
That would be a tier one.
BEEP hole offense are posts that
mock victims of hate crimes,
even if no real person is
depicted in their posts.
Also included in tier one
are posts that dehumanize
black,
Jewish and Muslim people
as various forms of farm
animals.
So clearly if you're racking
up multiple tier one offenses
like Alex Jones was you were a tier one
BEEP hole,
you should be rightfully banned
from the platform regardless of your
political affiliation.
Because of the apparent size of
Alex's like-minded followers,
Facebook actually released a press
statement on its decision to remove
Alex Jones from their platform.
They said that several of his posts
cross the line of their anti BEEP hole
policy because they glorified
violence and used dehumanizing
language to describe people
who were transgender,
Muslims and immigrants.
But interestingly enough,
Facebook stated that their reason for
Alex's ban actually had nothing to do with
his per pendency to create
easily debunked fake news.
Spotify, Apple,
and YouTube also removed Alex's
accounts at around the same time.
This led to InfoWars editor at
large to tweet shortly thereafter,
that this was akin to
political censorship,
a coordinated purge in what constituted,
a total abuse of power.
And I believe he's right about at
least one of these accusations.
It does seem like a coordinated purge.
There's no way that these four
platforms just randomly decided to
unleash the Banhammer at the same time.
But I disagree that this was a form of
political censorship or a total abuse
of power. Just a few weeks before
YouTube deleted his channel altogether,
they removed four videos that
contained what was described as
hate speech and images
of child endangerment.
That wasn't a ban over being political.
It was a ban over being an BEEP hole.
And I think it's fair that posts,
regardless of the political
bend that they come from,
should be censored if they contain
hate speech or misinformation that
rises to the level that
it can cause others harm.
And if one politically affiliated group
is posting more of this type of garbage
than the other,
then it would probably stand to reason
that they probably feel like there's a
political bias.
When in fact there's just
a bias against BEEP holes.
And extreme factions from both
sides of the aisle, quite frankly,
are guilty here. Look,
I'm all for free speech.
Politically speaking,
I'm actually not pro or anti
either the right or left
party. I'm a straight down
the center pragmatist,
but I do have a very strong
anti BEEP hole belief.
And honestly, I think most
people feel the same way.
So I want you to consider this
regardless of your political affiliation,
if you've had posts taken down or feel
like you've otherwise been censored on
social media, just for a second,
take a clear and objectionable, look
at the content that you're posting.
And in that moment of
sublime self-reflection,
ask yourself if you're actually
just being an BEEP hole.
And if the answer is yes,
then stop complaining about
censorship and stop posting that
crap on the internet.
So what do you think about the inherent
BEEP hole bias on social media?
Is it actually political?
Is it even working?
Feel free to leave your comments and
if needed your carefully worded insults
below I'll read and respond
to each and every one I
promise you. As a reminder,
don't forget to hit that subscribe
button before this video ends.
Thanks for watching. And
I'll see you twice a week.
