Social Media Companies

Facebook

What began as a way to stay in touch with college friends became the biggest social network in the world with 2.9 billion users. Thirty-six percent of them get their news on Facebook, according to Pew Research Center. Wielding that power, the platform is one of the biggest censors of conservative viewpoints through unfair application of company policies.

Those policies are extremely far left, from providing dozens of gender options to enforcing "hate speech" guidelines disproportionately against Christians and pro-lifers.

A Facebook partnership with Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) established a well-oiled fact-checking program generally used to dismiss posts that the platform disagrees with. Poynter, a journalism nonprofit, received $1.3 million from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and the Omidyar Network in 2017 to expand IFCN.

Contact Facebook: (650) 308-7300, Facebook, Twitter or by mail at 1601 Willow Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025

Instagram

Instagram, owned by Facebook parent company Meta, seems innocuous enough when it comes to sharing content. But in reality, the insidious censorship on the platform attacks Christians, conservatives, and the pro-life movement.

The photo and short video sharing app, Instagram, has more than 2 billion monthly users and is worth upwards of $110 billion. One of the most common accusations against Instagram is over shadow banning user content, even though the company continues to deny the practice. Shadow banning is the act of secretly hiding a user’s content from their followers, or blocking it from the “Explore” feature.

Contact Instagram: Call (415) 857-3369, email support@instagram.com, Facebook, Twitter or mail to 181 South Park Street Suite 2 San Francisco, CA 94107.

X / Twitter

The Media Research Center (MRC) found in 2018 that when it comes to censoring conservatives on social media, Twitter was the clear leader. The same year, former CEO Jack Dorsey claimed in front of Congress that it does not make decisions based on “political ideology,” and strives for impartial enforcement. Dorsey was CEO 2015-2021. Under his leadership, the platform morphed from a free speech free-for-all to a haven for the left and a censor of the right.

Parag Agrawal took over as company CEO in November 2021. Prior to his promotion, Agrawal said Twitter's role was "not to be bound by the First Amendment."

Twitter’s culture and workforce is so liberal that conservative staff members “don’t feel safe to express their opinions,” Dorsey said in an August 2018 interview. This liberalism also shows up in whom it suspends or bans, members of its Trust and Safety Council, whom and how it fact-checks, and in how it defines hateful or violent content. Its fact-checking team is led by Yoel Roth, who has called the Trump administration “ACTUAL NAZIS IN THE WHITE HOUSE.” Its Trust and Safety Council is also chock-full of liberal groups including GLAAD and the Anti-Defamation League.

Contact Twitter: (415) 222-9670, Facebook, Twitter or mail to 1355 Market Street Suite 900 San Francisco, CA 94103

YouTube

YouTube is the second most popular website in the world, behind Google. Alphabet owns both. YouTube has tremendous power to control information for its roughly 1.7 billion monthly users or more.

Although YouTube claims not to control information in a politically biased way, the site axed hundreds of campaign ads for former President Donald Trump and demonetized and suppressed conservative content, including content posted by pundits and pro-lifers. It also strictly limits firearms-related content. YouTube funds left-wing media initiatives, works diligently to “make sure that there's no bias” against the LGBTQ community and uses the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center as a “Trusted Flagger” to eliminate supposedly hateful content.

Most of the site’s censorship comes through enforcement of YouTube policies, which are in themselves biased against the right. It has rules for firearms, so-called hate speech and harassment and can enforce them by video removal, age restriction, demonetization, account suspensions and bans. And that doesn’t even touch the potential for algorithmic biases (which the company denies exist). Once videos get removed, there’s very little chance of reinstatement, according to a 2020 company report.

Contact YouTube: (650) 623-4000, Facebook, Twitter or by mail 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy Mountain View, CA, 94043.

Reddit

Once known as a bastion of free speech online, Reddit became openly hostile to conservative views in recent years, especially pro-Trump views. A series of company actions drove many pro-Trump voices off the social discussion and ranking site that bills itself as the “front page of the internet.” And that was even before Reddit officially banned r/The_Donald subreddit in June 2020.

The company claimed it banned the community (once as big as 800,000 users) for violating harassment, hate speech and content manipulation policies. It purged 7,000 subreddits for hate speech in 2020. Critics argued this was targeted censorship because left-wing harassment, threats, doxxing and hate speech happen in many unbanned subreddits. In May 2020, Republican lawmakers threatened to take action over Reddit’s use of a “progressive bludgeon.

As the ninth most popular U.S. social media website, Reddit boasted 430 million active monthly users in October 2021. Although initially supporting free speech, Reddit has turned to cracking down and suppressing it, including by banning climate skepticism from the science subreddit.

Contact Reddit: Email contact@reddit.com, Twitter, Facebook, or mail 1455 Market St., San Francisco, CA, 94103.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn may have a reputation as the professional social network, one that can help you find work. But it also has ties to an anti-Trump activist who spent millions to defeat President Donald Trump in 2020. Major Democratic donor Reid Hoffman co-founded LinkedIn. He actively campaigned against Trump in 2019 and called him “worse than useless” as president. Hoffman also gave $100,000 to an organization that used fake social media accounts to manipulate an Alabama special election.

Seen in this light, it makes conservatives’ claims that LinkedIn hid their posts far more plausible. In 2020, leaked audio of a conversation with LinkedIn leaders about Trump revealed the company is willing to “restrict speech” it deemed “incitement to violence.”

One of the company’s most controversial decisions came when it chose profits over freedom by agreeing to censor content in China in 2014 to operate in the communist country. Even while it agreed to censor its platform in China, LinkedIn Executive Chairman Jeff Weiner claimed, “LinkedIn strongly supports freedom of expression and fundamentally disagrees with government censorship.”

Hoffman and four others in Silicon Valley founded LinkedIn in 2003. Microsoft bought the company in 2016 for $26 billion, but the companies say it functions as an independent entity. A year later, Microsoft added Hoffman to its board. The network has roughly 822 million global users.

Contact LinkedIn: (650) 687-3600, Facebook, Twitter or by mail 222 2nd St., San Francisco, CA 94105

Parler

Because Parler was designed as a free speech response to Twitter, many conservatives banned or purged by other platforms have flocked to the social media company which has roughly 1.5 million users. John Matze and Jared Thompson launched Parler in 2018, as a sort of stripped down version of Twitter with a chronological feed (unlike the algorithms now used by Twitter and others)

Although the platform is open to all, conservatives angered by online censorship joined first and currently make up a majority of voices on Parler. “The whole company was never intended to be a pro-Trump thing,” Matze told CNBC. “A lot of the audience is pro-Trump. I don't care. I'm not judging them either way.”

Matze supports defeating bad ideas through dialogue instead of censorship and criticized other tech companies for controlling content through curation and moderation of content. He says his platform is different and without content bias, although there are some rules governing conduct.

Contact Parler: Facebook, Twitter or mail to 209 S. Stephanie St., Henderson, NV 89012

TikTok

TikTok is a young, popular short-form video tech platform. It’s also extremely controversial. Globally, the app has been downloaded more than 3 billion times. It has roughly 80 million active monthly users in the United States. But its ownership by Bytedance, a Chinese company with communist party ties, has generated privacy, cybersecurity and national security concerns.

The U.S. Armed Forces and Transportation Security Administration have both banned the app over cybersecurity risks. Concerned private information about Americans could be shared with the communist Chinese government, former President Donald Trump’s administration issued an executive order in August 2020, to ban the app, before a federal judge lifted the executive order.

TikTok reportedly admitted in 2022 that its China-based employees can access data from app users in the U.S.

Contact TikTok: feedback@tiktok.com, Contact Page, Facebook, Twitter, 10010 Venice Blvd., #301, Culver City, CA 90232

Gab

https://cdn.mrcfreespeechamerica.org/styles/term_display_230x250/s3/2020-09/Gab.jpg?itok=4_RUpjj4

Gab.ai, designed as a free-speech alternative to Twitter, is proof that advocating for free speech elicits outrage from the left. Since its founding, liberals have tried to shut it down.

Tech companies, payment processors and others have worked to prevent Gab from operating. Google removed Gab from its app store. Tech infrastructure companies including GoDaddy, and financial platforms PayPal, Stripe, Medium, credit card companies and Coinbase also dumped Gab after a massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue. The alleged shooter had posted anti-Semitic rants on the platform.

In 2018, Gab founder and CEO Andrew Torba wrote, “We are the most censored, smeared, and no-platformed startup in history, which means we are a threat to the media and to the Silicon Valley Oligarchy.”

Torba, who calls himself a conservative, Christian and Republican, created Gab in 2016 to be a “free speech social network.” Although he didn’t design it to be an alt-right or far-right network, many people with those views turned to Gab after being blocked or banned by what Torba called the “iron fist of censorship.” While welcoming all speech in accordance with the First Amendment, Gab does impose limits. It bans threats of terror, violence, pornography, child pornography and doxxing.

Contact Gab: (650) 477-5525 or mail 700 N. State St., Clarks Summit, PA, 18411.

Truth Social

Truth Social is former President Donald Trump's social media platform, which launched on Presidents Day in 2022 as a free-speech alternative to mainstream platforms like Twitter.

Just two months after Truth Social went live, leftists started trying to cancel it. The George Soros-funded Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington urged Apple in April 2022 to ban Truth Social from its app store, citing the platform's supposed “lenient approach to content moderation,” the spread of "dangerous disinformation," purported encouragement of "mobilization of anti-democratic groups" and the supposed "threat of violence" on the platform.

As of April 2022, Truth Social had about 513,000 daily active users, Marketwatch reported. Former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) is CEO of Trump Media and Technology Group, Truth Social's parent company.

Contact Truth Social: (800) 798-5754, Truth Social or mail at 1100 S. Ocean Blvd., Palm Beach, FL 33480

GETTR

Former advisor for President Donald Trump Jason Miller founded this platform, which launched on July 4, 2021. Privately held, the company bills itself as "a marketplace of ideas," "champions free speech" and "rejects cancel-culture," according to its website.

GETTR, which was "created to combat online censorship," now has over 2 million users, according to its About page. The company boasts that it gives users the ability to edit and add filters to images, post videos up to three minutes long, craft posts up to 777 characters, edit videos within the app and livestream up to 60 minutes.

Upon the app's launch, leftists started trying to cancel it. The Daily Beast ran an article in July 2021, a day after GETTR's launch, noting supposed ties between Miller and anti-Chinese communist billionaire Guo Wengui, who is also friends with former Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Even though Miller said some initial seed money for GETTR came from Guo's family foundation, The Beast nonetheless reported, "while Miller downplayed Guo’s connection, sites associated with the billionaire have suggested that Gettr is Guo’s brainchild." 

Contact GETTR: GETTR, 651 N. Broad St., Suite 206, Middletown, DE 19709

Other Tech Platforms

Google

Ninety-two percent of all web searchers turn to one place: Google.com. That’s what makes the trillion-dollar company’s bias so dangerous. The most popular website in the world and its employees are biased against conservative news sources and conservative commentators. Google even designs and tweaks algorithms to provide answers the liberals at Google supposedly think are correct.

Research psychologist Dr. Robert Epstein has called Google the “world’s biggest censor” and a “master manipulator.” He’s written that the company maintains about nine different blacklists, and testified to Congress that his research dating back to 2016 shows Google displays content biased in favor of Democrats.

Alphabet, Inc.’s Google products also steer people to liberal news sources. When Northwestern’s Computational Journalism Lab audited Google News’ “Top Stories,” it found 62.4 percent of article impressions from left-leaning sources. That was more than five times as many impressions from right-leaning media. There was also only one neutral or right-leaning source (Fox News) among the entire top 20. CNN dominated, getting three times as many impressions as Fox.

Contact Google: (650) 253-0000, Facebook, Twitter or by mail 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043.

Microsoft

The brainchild of Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Microsoft has grown into a $1 trillion tech behemoth with a president who supports censorship and an advertising manager who says “80 percent of Fox News” should be taken down from Facebook. In addition to the ubiquitous Windows operating system and Office software, Microsoft owns Bing, Skype, Xbox and more. It acquired LinkedIn in 2016.

Microsoft President Brad Smith advocates tech companies removing disagreeable content. Following the New Zealand terrorist attack, Smith said, “We should also pursue new steps beyond the posting of content. For example, we should explore browser-based solutions – building on ideas like safe search – to block the accessing of such content at the point when people attempt to view and download it.” In the same post, he criticized the use of digital tools to amplify “language of hate.” He also hasn’t ruled out the possibility of a federal government career transition.

The company also partners with the liberal NewsGuard, which supposedly ranks the trustworthiness of information sources. NewsGuard was founded by journalist Steven Brill, who has donated four times more to Democrats than Republicans, and is staffed with former journalists. It gives sites a trust rating between zero and 100 and indicates reliability with a red or green label. NewsGuard unfairly and inaccurately attacked Rush Limbaugh over COVID misinformation. Microsoft expanded the “news literacy” partnership in 2020.

Contact Microsoft: (425) 882-8080, Facebook, Twitter or mail to 1 Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052.

Vimeo

Christians be warned. Vimeo will censor you if it doesn’t like what you have to say. The video sharing company has a net worth of about $2.8 billion and about 170 million users. But its “heavy-handed censorship” is growing, too.

In 2020, Vimeo branded the American Family Association a “terror or hate group” and shut its account down. AFA’s Executive Vice President Ed Vitagliano noted that the Bible teaches that sex outside of marriage and homosexuality are sinful and Vimeo characterized this as “hate.”

Vimeo censors have often targeted Christian content including biblical teaching on sex and testimonies of people who left homosexuality.

It ordered Pure Passion Ministries (PPM) to take down testimonies from former homosexuals. When PPM founder David Kyle Foster asked why these were a violation, he was told: “To put it plainly, we don’t believe that homosexuality requires a cure and we don’t allow videos on our platform that espouse this point of view. Please remove any and all videos that discuss homosexuality as a condition requiring healing.” Later, Vimeo closed down PPM’s account and yanked the entire video catalog.

Contact Vimeo: Contact Page, Facebook, Twitter or by mail: 555 West 18th St., New York, NY, 10011.

Amazon

Although not always overtly political, Amazon is definitively liberal. It has rejected conservative films, tried to inhibit conservative book sales by blocking ads and relied on left-wing, anti-Christian zealots to decide which charities qualify for AmazonSmile.

Conservative groups petitioned Amazon’s board to stop letting the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) determine AmazonSmile eligibility. The company refused even though the SPLC considers conservative and Christian groups who support traditional marriage to be “hate or terrorist” groups. Floyd Lee Corkins, who entered and shot a guard at the Family Research Council in 2012, told the FBI he went to the SPLC’s website (which includes a map of so-called hate groups) to find anti-gay targets.

Because Amazon is exactly that, an “Amazon” of a company, it has tremendous power. What began as an online bookseller grew into a retail and tech powerhouse, which turned founder into one of the richest men alive. It also creates original programming, decides what content is sold on its platforms and owns Twitch — a streaming site best known for gaming.

Amazon is worth more than $1 trillion. Bezos used some of his Amazon bounty to become a media mogul, buying the liberal Washington Post in 2013. After Trump became president, The Post unveiled the motto “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”

Contact Amazon: (206) 266-1000, Facebook, Twitter or mail to 410 Terry Avenue North Seattle, WA 98109.

Apple

https://cdn.mrcfreespeechamerica.org/styles/term_display_230x250/s3/2020-09/Apple.jpg?itok=pnoxYr_T

Unlike some tech companies that pretend not to be biased, Apple and its leaders are very proud of their censorship efforts.

The company has advocated for the LGBTQ community and funded the left-wing group Southern Poverty Law Center, whose “hate map” was directly tied to a 2012 shooting at the Family Research Council.

The global tech company worth about $3 trillion makes many decisions according to its “values.” Apple News dumped LifeSiteNews claiming it “shows intolerance toward a specific group.” It’s App Store rejected free-speech Twitter alternative Gab. Apple also dropped InfoWars podcasts and the InfoWars app in 2018. Apple also purged free-speech social media platform Parler from its app store after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Riot, reinstating the app more than three months later.

Contact Apple: (408) 996-1010, Facebook, Twitter or by mail: 1 Apple Park Way, Cupertino, CA, 95014

Big Tech bias starts first and foremost with the companies themselves. Company leaders work with the left and openly support leftist causes — from abortion to narratives pushing manmade climate change. The companies establish content policies that restrict speech and ads that go against the leftist groupthink of Silicon Valley. Most such companies draw upon heavily liberal workforces, which shape how these companies' policies are crafted and enforced.