Harmeet K. Dhillon, one of the leading US First Amendment lawyers, called out the big tech giants at today’s White House Social Media Summit, saying that they lie about data theft and media manipulation and weaponize their platforms.
Dhillon made the comments when invited to speak by President Trump. In her speech, she cited multiple examples of big tech bias that her clients have experienced and criticized many of the social media giants’ practices.
On social media censorship:
“The corrupt establishment that you [President Trump] talked about and the mainstream media have told a lot of people in this room that the social media censorship and the banning that we’re experiencing is all in our heads. They’re gaslighting us with this lie.”
On her client David Horowitz – a conservative writer who has been censored by Twitter:
“David Horowitz is a great American, who is a supporter of yours, has been in the movement for many decades. Well Twitter, abruptly deplatformed him one day, took him off, said he was banned, and then he complained and then they let him back on. And then the next day, they did the exact same thing to him. That’s not an accident.”
On her client James Damore – a former Google engineer who is filing class-action lawsuit which alleges that Google has a biased internal culture against conservatives:
“James Damore is another great American that I represent. Mr. Damore complained internally about Google’s discriminatory practices against conservatives and pushed for more balance. Not only was he fired for daring to do that but then these social media platforms used their platforms to humiliate him publicly, weaponize their platforms, and make sure that he could not get a job in Silicon Valley. That’s a disgrace.”
On social media CEOs and their censorship of politicians, including Senator Marsha Blackburn, who had one of her Twitter campaign ads temporarily blocked by the platform:
“These social media CEOs have come to Congress in front of many of these members of Congress here and they’ve lied about what they do. They’ve lied about the data theft, they’ve lied about the media manipulation, and they can’t get away with it. Now Senator Blackburn knows from what happened to her on Twitter that these companies are trying to stop the ordinary men and women who you represent from hearing their voices. I’m very concerned that they affected the outcome of the 2018 election and if we let them do what they’ve been doing, it’s going to affect the outcome of the 2020 election as well.”
Here’s a video of Dhillon’s full speech at the White House Social Media Summit:
