Matt Gaetz Warns of ‘Chi-merica’ Under Big Tech and Big Government
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) warned Americans on Friday of the looming threat Big Tech and Big Government pose though censoring political speech.
“When Big Tech and Big Government team up, America starts to look more like China,” Gaetz said. “And the Chi-merica dream is shamefully a nightmare for our people.”
Gaetz spoke about the growing threat of de-platforming and censoring prominent voices on the right at a speech at CPAC, held in Orlando, Florida.
“If we win the debate but lose the internet, ours will be the last generation of American greatness,” he warned, noting that the increasingly powerful institutions would “squelch even the faintest whispers of dissent.”
He criticized the left and even some Republicans for their wide support of using American blood and treasure to nurture democracy in the Middle East but failing to protect Constitutional rights in the United States.
“The terms of service on Twitter can never be more important than the values that undergird our Constitution,” he said.
He urged conservatives to help create a “culture of free speech” in America to make it more difficult for the powerful in government to use technology to suppress their views.
China, he said, showed the power of the dangers of a “captive capitalism” linked with business and government to enrich the elite.
“There are no checks and balances when they can ctl-alt-delete anyone for any reason,” he said.
He pointed out President Joe Biden’s administration included a revolving door to some of the biggest technology figures to build a “unified system.”
Gaetz warned that even the apps and social media networks popular with Americans are threatening their freedom.
He said Instagram appealed to everyone’s vanity, Twitter to wrath, Uber Eats to gluttony, and Tinder to lust.
“Are these social networks really making us stronger, safer? Or do they further addict us to our vices?” he asked.
Gaetz promoted himself as a proud member of the pro-Trump America first movement that would fight the establishment to save free speech.
“The America First movement will never sell out to foreign interests abroad or special interests here at home, our citizens come first,” he said. “Sorry, not sorry.”
Marsha Blackburn: Big Tech ‘Aiding and Abetting’ China’s Push for ‘Global Dominance’
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday that big tech is “aiding and abetting” China’s mission for “global dominance.”
“China and big tech, they have a cozy relationship,” Blackburn said. “And they have been allowing the Chinese Communist Party to spew all of their information. I can’t find anywhere they’ve been censored or blocked or banned.”
“Big tech is aiding and abetting the Chinese Communist Party in their push for global dominance, and we are going to have to stand against it,” she added.
Blackburn said that by enacting the “virtual you” agenda, Americans could fight back against big tech’s dominance and censorship practices.
“This is what we will tell big tech: ‘you cannot track, follow, listen, data mine, or share your information, your information with a third party without getting your explicit consent,'” she said. “It is your privacy.”
Blackburn remarked that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg once admitted Facebook acts more “like a government than a company.”
The Tennessee Republican said she would work to remove big tech’s Section 230 legal immunity to prevent censorship and preserve those protections for big tech’s smaller competitors so that established tech giants and newer companies compete on a more even playing field.
She added that conservatives must tell “big tech and big media” that “enough is enough.”
“We will not stand for them to cancel conservatives; we will not stand for them shutting us down on social media,” she added.
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on
Twitter @SeanMoran3.
Report: Facebook a ‘Hotbed of Child Sexual Abuse Material’ with 20M Incidents
A recent report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children claims that Facebook had 20.3 million reported incidents of child sexual abuse material. In comparison, Pornhub’s parent company MindGeek had only 13,000 reports. Facebook accounted for 95 percent of the incidents in the report.
The Daily Beast reports that according to new data from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s (NCMEC) CyberTipline, the vast majority of online child exploitation reports were linked to Facebook. The study found that over 20.3 million reported incidents related to child pornography or trafficking were linked to Facebook.
In comparison to the millions of incidents reported on Facebook, Google had 546,704 incidents, Twitter found 65,062, Snapchat reported 144,095, and TikTok found 22,692. Facebook accounted for almost 95 percent of the 21.7 million reports combined across all platforms.
MindGeek, the Canada-based parent company of multiple porn websites including Pornhub, RedTube, and YouPorn, reported far fewer incidents than Facebook. MindGeek reported 13,229 reports.
MindGeek participated in the study for the first time last year following a year-long campaign called #Traffickinghub which aimed to shut down Pornhub for its alleged role in promoting underage human trafficking by hosting content featuring minors.
It is noted that both Pornhub and Facebook alleged that the data they provided may include duplicates. Pornhub alleges that the 13,229 stat “includes several thousand duplicates, with most reports submitted multiple times in an abundance of caution.” They claim that the number of unique incidents is 4,171.
Facebook released a similar statement alleging that 90 percent of the failed incidents were “the same as or visually similar to previously reported content.” If this is correct, Facebook’s total number of unique reports would still be 2,030,722, the largest number in the data pool by far.
Facebook published a press release titled “Preventing Child Exploitation on Our Apps,” announcing new measures to monitor child exploitation. The tools include new informational pop-up for related search terms, a policy for removing profiles associated with child-related flagged content, and an “involved a child” option for reporting “Nudity & Sexual Activity” on the platform.
Facebook stated in the release: “Using our apps to harm children is abhorrent and unacceptable. Our industry-leading efforts to combat child exploitation focus on preventing abuse, detecting and reporting content that violates our policies, and working with experts and authorities to keep children safe.”
Read more at the Daily Beast here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com
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