During the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee meeting this Wednesday, July 29, Ohio representative Jim Jordan took the opportunity to criticize Google for the multiple censorship cases in which the technology giant has participated.
The relevance of technology companies today has become a serious concern for politicians. The way companies decide to censor content depending on their interests seems to benefit certain countries and opinions, which has come under heavy criticism and resulted in constant pushback from government agencies and users.
This was the perfect time for the Rep. of Ohio, Jim Jordan, to denounce the multiple censorship cases in which these technology companies have participated, with special emphasis on Google.
Jordan cited as the most important example how Google has handled information related to COVID-19. According to the United States, since the start of the pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) has withheld important information about the disease to protect China’s good image. The USA rejected the WHO’s allegiance to China and was one of the reasons why they decided to disassociate themselves from the organization.
“April 19 2020 – Google and YouTube announce a policy censoring the content that conflicts with recommendations of the World Health Organization,” Jordan said. “Now, think about that. The organization that lied to us, the organization that shilled for China… and if you contradict something they say, they can say whatever they want, they can shill for China…You say something against them? You get censored.”
Jordan indicates that there is enough evidence to demonstrate the WHO’s low credibility and its relationship with the Chinese government, so companies such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google should not take it as a reference for their moderation policies.
However, for Google, all statements about the virus that do not match recommendations from the WHO should be removed, so medical opinions that go against it are censored. They even went as far as deleting several YouTube videos of America’s Frontline Doctor Summit because the doctors had a different opinion.
The representative emphasized that this policy change at Google is not the only one relevant to censorship during 2020. He also echoed attempts at censorship of conservative opinions by removing all visibility from pages like The Daily Caller or Breitbart.
He even recalled that the search engine recently threatened to deprive The Federalist of ad revenue because some of the website’s users were making negative comments in the portal’s comments section.
