US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member Brendan Carr is asking Alphabet, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft to provide answers regarding their censorship-related activities over the past four years.
Reclaim The Net has access to a letter addressed to the tech giants’ CEOs, where Carr mentions controversy-riddled NewsGuard – which is promoted by those running it as “a rating system for news websites.”
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
But the commissioner, citing information revealed in the Twitter Files, placed it within “the broader censorship cartel” and as one of the so-called fact-checkers and media monitors whose main business, in reality, is to suppress free speech in general, and certain voices in particular.
And, according to him, NewsGuard and its ilk have been targeting conservative media with defunding, demonetizing, and other methods of harming their business, notably by working with ad agencies.
Chinese state-controlled media fare better in NewsGuard’s “credibility” ranking than conservative outlets in the US, the commissioner remarked.
Carr, a Republican, point-blank accuses the four major tech companies of improper conduct as they played “a significant role” in what he said was “an unprecedented surge of censorship” Americans have been exposed to during recent years.
Carr’s message for the CEOs is that he is confident once the new US administration is in place, both the White House and Congress will take “broad-ranging actions” aimed at restoring free speech protections guaranteed by the First Amendment, but also that one of those actions could be “a review of your companies” along with their third-party partners involved in censorship running afoul of those protections.
The four tech giants have until December 10 to respond to the letter and explain how they use fact-checkers, raters, etc., but also which ad agencies they partner with.
The commissioner accused Big Tech of subjecting Americans to censorship and media bias in a separate statement to Newsmax, essentially arguing that this has gone too far, and has been going on for too long.
Reacting to Carr’s letter, a NewsGuard spokesperson told NewsMax it was being “littered with falsehoods,” while at the same time claiming that the organization is not only “apolitical” – but also plays no part in online censorship, or in “blocking” conservative news sources.
