The Tech Giants say left-wing bias on their platforms is a figment of the conservative imagination, but the figment appeared again this week.
First, Twitter attempted to censor the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) because it used the term “illegal alien.” Then a leaked e-mail from Google shows the tech behemoth’s effort to push the Latino vote toward Hillary Clinton, which might have been a in-kind contribution and campaign law violation.
Maybe, just maybe, President Trump is on to something in his frequent criticism of these unregulated information controllers.
Twitter Blue-Pencils CIS, Then Reverses Course
The trouble for CIS began when it tried to tweet four ads with the term “illegal alien” and “criminal alien.”
“All four tweets use the statutory phrases ‘illegal alien’ or ‘criminal alien.’ and all of the tweets referenced law enforcement, either at the border or in the interior,” CIS reported. “One of the tweets contained a powerful Daily Caller video showing illegal aliens in camouflage carrying large backpacks across the border unimpeded.”
Statutory means the terms are used in legal documents.
The tweet about the video contained this language: “A new video from the @DailyCaller showing illegal aliens pouring across the border reminds us why we need a wall.”
Why didn’t Twitter kill it? “We’ve reviewed your tweets and confirmed that it is ineligible to participate in the Twitter Ads program at this time based on our Hateful Content policy,” Twitter said. “Violating content includes, but is not limited to, that which is hate speech or advocacy against a protected group.”
Who knew illegal aliens were a protected group? And who is protecting them, except the radical leftist seeking a change in the electorate?
Those questions aside, CIS explained that it selected the previous tweet and three others to be placed on Twitter as advertisements. “Organizations of all kinds pay Twitter to promote specific tweets in order to drive traffic to an organization’s website,” CIS explained. “Twitter advertises that the ads ‘can get you more likes, amplify your message, and get more people talking about the things that matter to you most — your cause, project, business, or brand.’”
The second tweet reported that “ICE recently completed a massive multi-state enforcement operation targeting criminal aliens that resulted in the arrests of 364 individuals.” The third reported that “a couple in Oregon was recently killed by a drunk-driving Mexican illegal alien,” while the fourth reported that “the farm which employed the illegal alien who killed Mollie Tibbetts was raided by ICE agents.”
Twitter reversed its decision after the censorship became public.
Google Helped Hillary
Beyond that, Fox News talker Tucker Carlson divulged the contents of a leaked e-mail from a top Google executive that flatly states the company attempt to get Hispanic votes for Hillary Clintion.
Reported Fox News, “the 675-word email … was written by the tech giant’s former head of multicultural marketing and details a range of efforts to increase Latino turnout, including the support of a partner organization that helped to drive voters to the polls.”
The e-mail explained what Google did:
We worked very hard. Many people did. We pushed to get out the Latino vote with our features, our partners, and our voices. We kept our Googley efforts non-partisan and followed our company’s protocols for the elections strategy. We emphasized our mission to give Latinos access to information so they can make an informed decision at the polls, and we feel very grateful for all the support to do this important work.
The e-mail lamented Clinton’s loss, particularly given the Latino effort:
Ultimately, after all was said and one [sic], the Latino community did come out to vote, and completely surprised us. We never anticipated that 29% of Latinos would vote for Trump. No one did.
So if the effort was “non-partisan,” why mention the candidates at all? And what did Google anticipate?
Even though the e-mail says Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, backed the effort, the company denied partisan politicking. “The views expressed in this email are the employee’s personal political views and are not representative of any official stance from the company,” a spokesman told Fox. “Google’s elections efforts — both in 2016 and leading up to this year’s midterms — have been entirely nonpartisan.”
How nonpartisan was that, given repeated use of the word “we”? The e-mail explains: “Objectively speaking, our goal was met — we pushed and successfully launched the search features in Spanish, and we thank Lisa for her support in advocating for this work…. Even Sundar gave the effort a shout out and comment in Spanish, which was really special.”
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