Social Media Doesn’t Want You To Hear This

Today on Sekulow, social media doesn't want you to hear what we're going to be talking about. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you.

Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Hey, welcome to Sekulow. And folks, as we said in the broadcast and the tease of the broadcast, this is a conversation social media companies don't want you to hear. We saw Elon Musk tweet out that given that Twitter serves as, quote, the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy, what should be done is a new platform needed.

Now, this is someone obviously with the financial means to launch a new platform. We're going to get into this today because we have been targeted at the ACLJ twice on Facebook directly for information that was not wrong or inaccurate. And then we've had to fight back.

Of course, we've got the resources to fight back as an organization. What I want to hear from you is what happens when you post something and you get shadow banned or your account deactivated. Give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. Because, Dad, this is a growing problem. I'm out of Washington DC today and this week, but it's a growing problem for conservatives on social media to be able to freely speak their mind and share information from the ACLJ. Well, look, we've had two incidents in a month. One was labeled, the information we put up was labeled by Facebook's censors as partly false. By the way, they came back then and said they took all those warnings down, but of course, they did their damage. And then about two weeks later, we got one that said false information about a hearing we actually did. And then they took those down, but then said it was missing context and we're the ones that did the hearing. But this is what's going on, Logan, right now. Yeah, it's happening all over social media.

You've seen people talk about it. And look, we have been very successful on social media. Obviously, the show broadcast on social media, whether that is on Facebook or YouTube or Rumble, we are there. We are very active on Twitter and on Instagram. We are everywhere. We feel like that voice needs to be shared, needs to be heard everywhere. The big question is the protection of these companies and whether, as Elon Musk said, has the public square moved from the physical public square to social media? Obviously, these are privately held companies. So there are a lot of different rules and regulations, but something that we have some expertise in.

We sure do. And maybe can at least elaborate, at least look at the concept of if cases can be had. So the truth of the matter is that I started my career arguing public forum cases.

And we're actually going to talk about that later in the broadcast. What is the, as Elon Musk said, the marketplace of ideas? And the social media platforms have become the marketplace of ideas. It used to be the town square. And the issue was, when it was the town square, it was the government and the first amendment applied to the government restrictions on free speech. It doesn't necessarily apply when you've got a situation where the speech is not by the government or the restriction not by the government, but by a private organization using their platform. The argument being you have no constitutional right to access a platform. But you know what? Facebook and these other groups don't have a constitutional right to protection under section 230 either.

And they also do a lot of damage. We've seen that happen with our own pages and our own groups that are all these things because if they get it wrong, if a lead story gets it wrong, their corrections often do more damage to your brand because you're getting more notifications because now they're adjusting. Oh, we weren't completely right that everything was wrong. Now we're only partially right that you were wrong.

So we're going to tell people again that you were wrong and then you're gonna have to fight it. And by that point, the damage is done. And that's the big concern here. People invested their lives and their careers into social media, and now it's turning on them.

And a lot of times when they're straight up wrong. And one of the issues too is we've seen the difficulties in launching new platforms. It would probably take an Elon Musk style kind of influx of cash to be able to launch a new free speech platform here in the United States that also people can utilize around the world. We're taking your calls, how it affects you. 1-800-684-3110. Support the work of the ACLJ. We're on this issue as well. Donate today at ACLJ.org. We have our matching challenge, double the impact of your donation at ACLJ.org. Donate today.

We'll be right back on Sekulow. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad, whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith. I'm covering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress. The ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes 100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support.

Take part in our matching challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, Planned Parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life.

Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. And this is what is so unique about this debate on social media and the need for basically a new public forum because online, whether you like it or not, is becoming the world and social media is becoming a world that is the new public forum in America where you share your views. And while some companies that have created these platforms may not like that, I mean, when you look at a platform like Twitter, that's the entire point is to be able to share views and the idea that should we be in a country that maximizes free speech, that maximizes the freedom to speak openly, to have disagreements.

And again, that does not include criminal activity. That's not covered under First Amendment protections. So these companies can no longer hide behind the idea that they're policing speech. I mean, the first time this happened to us on social media that we know about, I would say that we know about because it was done publicly, was when we shared basically a Fox News story about the Durham Report update. There was a court filing that had information that appeared that the Clinton campaign was funding the effort to undermine the Trump campaign via the Russian disinformation and the Steele dossier. And we posted that similar information to Fox and Dad right away. We were flagged multiple times. And then they started flagging posts that had nothing to do with that.

Right. So it was labeled partly false. And by the way, during that one, I read, if you remember, Jordan, I read right from the indictment, right from the document. And then they labeled it partly false. And then they started labeling other programs that we did that had nothing to do with it partly false based on the Durham Report. They said because of what information the Durham Report, this is partly false. Now, they took off those flags, Logan, they removed them, but they did a lot of damage. They notified our members, our subscribers all over the country.

Yeah, I believe anyone, as far as we can tell, anyone who shared the broadcast, or not the broadcast, the clips or the memes or the images, or interacted with it, commented, like we're all given notification saying what you liked, what you commented, what you shared. That was what we consider false news or not even false news, just either partially false, partly false, and then backed it up. It happened a couple different times. So we saw that happen in both times. One time they had to completely remove any sort of flag.

The other time we're actually still in conversation with them. But they had to take it, they had to take that off the, when they just said we were straight up false, straight up false, they had to then go back and at least remove that part and adjust their language, issue a correction. And the second time it happened to us, the one Logan's talking about that we're still working on, is a complex legislative matter in a state legislature in Maryland about an abortion bill where there was language where they didn't use the term prenatal, but they used a term that would also be postnatal, post birth. And it was different pieces of legislation were happening in the state house and the state Senate. And they tried to label our information as partially false, but what they didn't understand was the complex nature of what we were talking about, was that in the state Senate, they had corrected the language, but to add to the state house, they had not yet corrected the language. And you don't know at that point what legislation is going to actually make it to the final form that would end up on a governor's desk. And we were in the middle of scheduling hearings that were being moved around. So they were getting in the weeds, trying to get in the weeds on a complex matter involving abortion, rather than just letting us speak our view on the legislation to our own audience who signed up to get our information. It's not like Facebook's just sharing it with everybody, just to get it to the people that have signed up to say, we want the ACLJ's info.

But you know what? On that one, we had already submitted written testimony about the issue. So they're arguing with us and I'm saying to myself, we're the lawyers handling the matter. And you've got some fact checking group that are not lawyers doing all of that. Yeah.

I mean, you can even see it. You can see it happen on social media all the time. Right now we're on rumble. There's thousands of people watching right now on rumble on a more free speech platform. But honestly, a smaller audience in theory, like the amount of people that are actually on rumble compared to how many people are on Facebook, they interact with your posts. However, they've outpaced the Facebook broadcast now for a good couple of weeks because... Like twice.

Thanks to rumble for obviously, they've been sharing the show and they've been talking about it, but it shows that the percentages are way off in terms of what people get to see what they don't get to see, what's pushed into their feed and what they've considered again, like we said, censorship as we move forward in a new world where Jordan is right. Could a new platform be launched? Yes.

Is it very difficult? Incredibly. Well, that's why we're glad rumble did. Yeah. And you have issues though, where like you said, with Elon Musk, yeah, you have the richest guy on the planet. Sure.

He may be able to figure it out, but that's still a maybe. Yeah. I do want to say this about rumble though, because they have been a great home for us over these last several, I guess we've been doing this what for about a month now.

And we encourage people to go to rumble. In fact, we got a call coming in on that. Let's take Jennifer's call out of Oklahoma. Yep. I think Jennifer is in yeah, Oklahoma on line one, you're on the air.

Hi. I was going to offer to see the brains of a new social media platform that respects our first amendment rights. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of people would love there to be another outlet and another option for that. I mean, for rumble, for video rumbles, like we've considered the YouTube for free speech, whether you like the speech or not. And that's maybe the thought process moving into a new, I think what Elon was saying was something more Twitter-like, but it can't also be echo chambers.

I think that's a concern too. Because if you start doing that, then there's no discussion. Nothing happens. If you create a social media platform that is for conservatives, you create a social media platform that's only for liberals, then where's the discussion? Where's the conversation? It's not a public at that point. That used to be, you remember the old soapbox preacher, they call it the public, the sidewalks and the city squares. We're going to talk about that later, the public fora. And that's where you would have the discussions.

The news readers would come in and read the news and people would debate and you had this robust free speech. Well, you don't have that right now in the big tech situation, Jordan. You just don't.

No, you don't. You don't have a place where you can openly go and know that what you post, again, that's not criminal in nature, that's not illegal in nature, won't flag your account. And then also de-platform you, whether it's a shadow ban that we've talked about where your message is not being delivered, or whether you're put in Twitter jail or Facebook jail for a number of days because you happen to share an opinion that their fact checker doesn't even understand. Why are they getting into the weeds of deciding what is right and wrong?

Not illegal and legal, okay? But what is right and wrong when it comes to content and the viewpoint that you have and what information? Remember, on all of these platforms, and Logan, I think it's important to point out a number of times just to get it again, that people who signed up, the millions of people who are on the ACLJ and J-Secular Facebook pages signed up on their own to get that information. They are asking for that information, and yet still Facebook is denying them that information. We know that's happening right now to millions of people, to most of those subscribers aren't getting that information.

On Twitter, it's become a game of whether or not they will shut you down. If you get involved in any kind of discussion, we're leading into a midterm election where politics, again, people have strong views. You might agree with those views or disagree with those views. Sometimes people will present their view as fact because they believe it to be fact.

You might not believe it to be fact. But how about that discussion happened between Americans who are smart enough to do it on their own. They don't need these companies policing speech.

We need a place in America that allows robust freedom again, where you see things you don't like, hear things you don't like, but you're also able to know that you can post information that you do like and that you do want people to see. And also, I want to go back to this point, Logan, and that is when they come out and say, oh, you were right, we're going to correct it. It doesn't correct it. In fact, the initial article in the second attack on us, the one that said false information was still up until, it may still be up now. They put the little addendum afterwards, but it was like the correction in the newspaper on page 812. Just like that, just trying to hide the fact they did it. They didn't take something down or adjust. They still had the bad article up that you gave false information about our own case that we think we know about. Yeah, and it was so, you know, nothing.

It was such like, there's not really a leg to stand on and they know it. But these companies, they've been hired to do this independently from the big social media platforms and a lot of times they get it wrong. And when they get it wrong, there is a process to challenge it. We do it each and every time to varying results, but always to at least them downgrading it. The problem is, is they then sometimes will, they will sometimes then just send out another alert to you saying stuff you've shared contains, you know, partially or partly false information or was missing context. We had that as well, but they didn't say we are backing this down because of this. You just get another alert to your phone, again, creating irreparable damage to your brand.

Oh yeah. I mean, it's ridiculous. Let me just say this too, for a legal group to put in all of that context, we're talking about legislation that can be hundreds of pages long, their fact checkers couldn't even do it. They wouldn't even be able to read or understand the language we use as attorneys.

So it's a joke. It's obviously a partisan attack because we're pro-life and it happens to me that we're supporting changes to legislation that would be pro-life and anti-abortion on demand at any time. So there's no way they could actually fact check the actual legislation or the proposals that we're making to change it. They would not be able to put that much context together.

You couldn't even do that one hour of a broadcast. That's the work our attorneys do behind the scenes. So again, support our work. We're not backing down and we're taking this head on. We're not afraid to call out Facebook.

We're not afraid to call them out by name. Support the work of the ACLJ. Double your Impact Your Donation. We're in a matching challenge month.

We're a little bit behind. We need your support at ACLJ. Donate today. ACLJ.org. Double the Impact Your Donation. That's ACLJ.org.

We'll be right back. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you were saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life. Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. Whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy, and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes 100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support. Take part in our matching challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org.

All right, welcome back to Secular. We're going to get back into this social media discussion, bring in some more of our experts in the second half hour of the broadcast. I'm in Washington, D.C. You're going to see me a lot more back in Washington, D.C. as things begin to reopen. I was here last month, and we're planning some new efforts that actually tie right into this segment of the broadcast because we're expanding the work we do diplomatically with representatives from countries directly. So not just working on the international stage, but actually working with diplomats.

I'll talk about that in a moment, what we're working on in Washington, D.C., and a new program that we're going to be doing in Washington, D.C. But again, we've been showing you how we've been able to maintain our presence at the United Nations. Our European Center for Law and Justice is a recognized NGO at the UN, and we've been participating and giving these oral interventions on countries where there is concern for religious persecution and religious liberty. One of those I just did was on Nigeria, and I want you to watch this. This is, again, this is officially played before the UN Human Rights Council. It's not just a video we put out. It's a video they put out that we participated in. Take a listen or watch. I give the floor to the representative of European Center for Law and Justice.

Thank you, Mr. President. Since 2013, the ECLJ has continually brought to this council's attention the genocidal situation Christians face in Nigeria. In the past 12 years, Islamic extremist groups have been responsible for the deaths of approximately 43,000 Christians and the attacks on 17,500 churches.

And the violence is ongoing. Christians are targeted, homes are burned to the ground, and children are being abducted at alarming rates. For example, on January 20th of this year, Boko Haram abducted 17 girls after an attack on a village in Borno State. During the attack, Boko Haram also terrorized the villagers by shooting sporadically and then burning down two churches and two homes. And we must not forget Leah Cheribu, a Christian schoolgirl who was kidnapped in February of 2018 and who remains a captive of Boko Haram still today simply because she has refused to abandon her Christian faith. Action must be taken to prevent further harm to thousands of more innocent Nigerians at the hands of terrorist groups. Christians should be able to peacefully live out their faith and attend religious services without the fear that they will be attacked and killed while doing so. The ECLJ calls upon the UN to take the immediate necessary action to stop the violence and rescue Leah Cheribu as well as all other Christian hostages. Thank you.

I mean, Dan, I would go right to you. It speaks to the seriousness of the issues we're handling internationally. You're not kidding. Cece Howell is on the set with me here, and we were just talking about this while you were giving that testimony. I want everybody to understand that is played before the Human Rights Council, which is not necessarily a friendly organization. But you know what? It's called the Ministry of Presence.

You got to be there. Now, what's important is we deal with multiple bodies inside the UN. Cece and I were talking about a case this morning where we may take it, in fact, a case that you gave an intervention on, which we're going to see in a moment, out of Pakistan. And we may take it to the arbitration panel. Right. So the working group on arbitrary detention would be another UN agency that we would go before to address this issue that we have a case in Pakistan that we are going to talk a little bit more about. Let's give a little bit of a background on that case, Cece, before we play the video.

All right. So our office in Pakistan, affiliate office in Pakistan, we represent a juvenile when he was arrested, Shahzad Masih. He was 17 years old. He was a janitor at a hospital and he got into a religious conversation with an older, much more savvy, religiously savvy Muslim. Ended up stating that he had heard a friend of his father's who was Muslim make a blasphemous statement.

And just because he said that, that turned into a mob coming after him. He got arrested. You know, even when the police, the superintendent of police investigated, he found that he was not guilty of making a blasphemous statement, yet the prosecutor still went after this young man and he's been sitting in prison for five years. And in the second case in Pakistan, and my understanding of the facts are the Supreme Court of Pakistan, which is, these are Islamic countries with Islamic courts, basically, and this was a Christian who has been missing. She's a 14 year old girl, right?

Yes. 14 years old, Christian girl. She had been contacted 40 times the day before she disappeared by a Muslim neighbor, inappropriate contact. And they don't even know how he got her phone number, disappeared the very next day.

The police will not investigate because she is a Christian, and they will not go find this young girl simply because of her faith. Folks, so the European Center for Law and Justice, our affiliate in Strasbourg, has NGO, non-governmental organization status. C.C. Heil made a presentation, just like Jordan did, to the UN Human Rights Council on this case. Take a listen. I give a floor to European Center for Law and Justice.

Thank you, Mr. President. Pakistan has been rated the eighth worst place in the world for Christian persecution. The ECLJ's affiliate in Pakistan legally represents many of these Christian victims, and there are two current cases that require this council's immediate attention.

The first case involves a false blasphemy accusation. Shahzad Masih has been in prison for almost five years, despite the fact that the superintendent of the police even testified that he is not guilty of any crime. Yet, Shahzad, a juvenile when arrested, remains in prison, and if convicted, this completely innocent young Christian man will be sentenced to death. The second case also involves a young Christian who has been deprived of justice.

MJ was only 14 years old when she tragically disappeared. Although her parents turned over evidence of their 45-year-old Muslim neighbor inappropriately contacting their daughter over 40 times right before her disappearance, the police refused to investigate, and the child disappearance alert system refuses to send out any alert. Even worse, the Supreme Court recently declined to order the police to find her unless the parents tell them her location. Such a ludicrous statement by the highest court is an absolute mockery of justice. Meanwhile, this innocent young girl remains missing, and her parents don't even know if their daughter is still alive.

Pakistan cannot allow these types of cases to continue without justice. It must be reminded of its obligations to protect all its citizens, including its minorities, and especially innocent children. Thank you. Jordan, you're going to make a little bit of an announcement about what we're doing in Washington to increase our influence and impact. Yeah, so we brought in new members of our team, and we are going to be launching an ACLJ, really, diplomat training program for foreign diplomats based in Washington, D.C. It's going to start off with basically walking through the Constitution and the different branches of our government, the legislative branch, the executive branch, the judicial branch, and the inner workings there, but also topics that are focused on for these diplomats specifically.

We're going to launch this program next month, and this will be continuous at the ACLJ. We'll also be bringing in later on, you know, some of our more high-profile members of the ACLJ team for these diplomats, like former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, like former acting director of national intelligence and ambassador to Germany, Rick Grenell. So we're going to be using the expertise we have at the ACLJ to develop relationships with the diplomats based here in Washington, D.C., so that, again, we are expanding our work.

We're going to be training them in kind of American politics and civics 101, but the cool thing about it is that we'll be developing the relationships. So when an issue arises where we need their assistance or we need to build a coalition of countries to come together on one of the topics that either Cece or I just talked about at the U.N., we can do it because we're going to have better direct staff-level contacts. So we're expanding that work here in Washington, D.C., and it is something we're able to do because of your financial support of the American Center for Law and Justice. Being able to expand our work, expand our team, expand the offerings that we're making to the diplomats based here, all because of you and inside of our ACLJ, D.C. headquarters, support the work of the ACLJ financially. We've got a matching challenge.

We're almost at the end of a month. We are behind in our matching challenge, so we need your financial support. Donate today, ACLJ.org.

At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20. A $50 gift becomes $100. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever this is secular and now your host jordan secular hey everybody i'm coming to you from our studios in washington dc and this second half hour of the broadcast we're going to get back into this discussion as we title this show a a discussion and information that big tech and social media companies they don't want you to hear they don't want you to understand uh the way that they are coming after the conservative viewpoint on social media and in the sense as elon musk wrote himself when you are seeing online places like twitter and facebook as places where uh really it became the new public forum and we're used to communicating electronically to those that we're friends with but even to people we don't know and to engage in these conversations but dad what we have seen is a systematic takedown of conservative viewpoints either by banning those those viewpoints all together we saw the President united states be banned altogether or by by these platforms deciding hey we don't care that you have 4 million or 5 million people who want your information we're not going to deliver it to them you know we have collectively between your pages my pages and the hclj's page on facebook alone almost 9 million say eight and a half million i think is the number and then you'll see the response on a broadcast way down or we get those notices and they're getting a free pass because we're going to talk about this with harry hutchinson at the end of the broadcast or the next segment uh because of the section 230 immunity that they have but they have squelched free speech that's why we're thrilled with rumble on the video side the youtube side of it so to speak uh rumble has been great and we're thrilled that they've hosted us and promoted us but jordan let's go ahead and take a phone call uh because a lot of people have been calling in jerry's calling from rhode island on line four let's go ahead and take jerry's call hey jerry welcome to the show you're on the air in regards to what's been described and how was aclj incorporated as an entity not had their constitutional right to conduct commerce affected and individually each of j logan join how have you not been defamed when they falsely tag you well they you bring up a good question i have said that when they send out these false tags that they are uh tortuously interfering with business they tortually interfere with your brand it's it is a defamation of sorts on your brand and then they go back and correct it and the corrections are as we've said meaningless but they're not a state actor so there's not pure free speech uh first amendment implications on this and they have their protections under section 230 so jerry that's the problem they have got this kind of protection and that's what you're you're we're re-evaluating whether we think that's a good idea anymore jordan yeah and i think that uh again we're gonna get to that in the next segment because people hear that thrown around we're gonna actually explain it for all of you so you don't want to miss that break down this section 230 because i think it had a point when it existed initially and that point has now expired uh and it's being abused by social media companies which by the way folks again they will come to groups like ours i think jerry brought up a great point which is they come to you and say spend money on advertising get more supporters get more followers to come to your page but at the same time so they'll take that money at the same time they are deplatforming you in the sense that you are not able to deliver your message to those supporters that you may be spending advertising money with them on to get to your page so there is a difference between just censoring information but then also because of the monetary exchange here dad i do think that they are in a bit deeper water what they can't just behind hide behind a corporate shield and say well we're a corporation we get to decide what goes out and what doesn't i mean they're a little bit different than that yeah they are and they're skewing the marketplace of ideas i mean don't kid yourself for a moment they are skewing the marketplace of ideas and that's one of the things we're looking at here but again when they come back and then they say they're they're challenging their fact checker is challenging us the lawyers that are actually handling the case and say we put out false statements they corrected that but they still sent out those notices then they said we were complete totally false on one thing that we were handling the issue and they said oh no it was just out of context we shouldn't have said it was false but the damage was already done and that's why you fight back and one of the ways you fight back is you support the work of the american center for law and justice at aclj.org we're in a matching challenge campaign right now we encourage you to support our work aclj.org any amount you donate to us this month we get a matching gift for so that's aclj.org aclj.org if you want to talk to us about this big tech censorship call us at 800-684-3110 that's 1-800-684-3110 we've got a lot more coming ahead we've got a lot more coming ahead at the american center for law and justice we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad whether it's defending religious freedom protecting those who are persecuted for their faith i'm covering corruption in the washington bureaucracy and fighting to protect life in the courts and in congress the aclj would not be able to do any of this without your support for that we are grateful now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way for a limited time you can participate in the aclj's matching challenge for every dollar you donate it will be matched a ten dollar gift becomes twenty dollars a fifty dollar gift becomes 100 this is a critical time for the aclj the work we do simply would not occur without your generous support take part in our matching challenge today you can make a difference in the work we do protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family give a gift today online at aclj.org only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive and that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the american center for law and justice to defend the right to life we've created a free powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the aclj's battle for the unborn it's called mission life it will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support and the publication includes a look at all major aclj pro-life cases how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists the ramifications of roe v wade 40 years later play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry and what obamacare means to the pro-life movement discover the many ways your membership with the aclj is empowering the right to life request your free copy of mission life today online at aclj.org gift all right welcome back to secular so the question is section 230 you hear about it so often when these social media companies censor you censor us censor a conservative viewpoint and dad i think it's important now that today on this broadcast to really break down what that is and what it isn't and whether or not there is a political move to the question whether it should be reformed or just completely thrown out and and no longer be this protection that social media companies hide behind when they censor speech so i've asked our director of policy professor harry hutchison to join us on this discussion because section 230 is a of the communications decency act harry has been a sort of immunity for these big tech companies from liability for instance when they wrongfully take something down or censor a viewpoint so they've had this shield of protection legislatively i think that is correct but the question becomes whether or not they have taken excess liberty in the usage of section 230 by engaging an active collusion with government or governmental entities if they do so one could argue for instance that they have engaged in an in-kind contribution to one political party and so then the question becomes have they reported this contribution to the federal election commission it is very very doubtful they have done so and so if you look at all of the discussions that we've had in the nation since President biden took office his press secretary jin saki has continually called upon the big tech companies to do what to actively censor contrary points of view to the extent that they engage in such conduct then the question becomes do we have an active cool do we have active collusion or an act of conspiracy if you will that ought to void section 230 now i would argue that my claims at least so far tread unquestionable grounds because we have not yet had a dis decision by a federal court on this issue but this particular issue deserves tremendous scrutiny because there is clear and unmistakable evidence backed by an academic paper which shows that there may have been some election misconduct in 2020 this is by this is a study by john lot and the question becomes will this academic study by an individual who has a phd in economics and a law degree and a distinguished academic record for the last 30 years will it now be suppressed like youtube suppressed a c-pac convention more recently so you you asked this question i mean what kind of coming off what harry said and that is if if you got right now the former President of the united states former President trump is banned from facebook if he were to be the nominee in 20 in 2024 and i'm assuming it's joe biden running for the democratic party are they going to ban continue that ban because boy it's exactly what harry said jordan then it's one side of the debate has all the access yeah and then you start getting into other laws outside of section 230 that you could be in violation of exactly what harry said because you you could be so yeah like what harry what harry said because then you get into fec laws election laws there's federal laws on that there's state laws on that but if you're opening up a forum only for only for the democrat nominee only for one of the two major party nominees you see where that becomes a legal issue as well and again this idea that they will just hide behind these platforms i think we have a good call coming tim in colorado on line one tim thanks for holding on you're on the air thanks for taking my call it's very helpful to hear the instances of what has happened to the aclj on the social media platforms my question is this sort of multi-part do you know of instances when any social media platform has warned or shut down posts or videos that presented viewpoints from progressive or liberal perspectives and then what the social media response was and what can be done to publicize those biases i'll say i don't i don't have any uh references i mean again i'm not going to be speak definitively and say it's never happened because sometimes these happen accidentally as well because of a term that's used i mean that's how fundamentally flawed some of these systems are so you use the wrong term so that could have happened to somebody who's liberal but what i do know is that overall that the democrat President is not banned from social media the former republican President is and he might be a candidate again and he's still banned at this point yeah well i'll tell you who else isn't banned the ayatollah from iran's not banned either so i mean think about that for a moment harry i mean you know you talk about the ridiculous nature of all of this and these you know process which but but they're controlling a big portion of the marketplace of ideas now absolutely and so it's very very important with respect to for instance the ayatollah these big tech companies they basically claim that they will ban calls for violence except violence that either comes from terrorists organizations or from the left and so i think they are very very selective in the deployment of their algorithms and they deploy those algorithms by and large to disadvantage conservative speech and so i think every american ought to be incredibly vigilant with respect to their particular use of social media and to the extent that alternatives pop up they should take advantage of those alternatives to drive down viewership if you will on these left-leaning social media programs and that would deprive them hopefully of revenue and it perhaps in the future we will see new alternatives emerge and so i certainly welcome the claims made by elon musk that at least he's considering providing the american people with an alternative basically the notion of free speech is impossible to achieve unless both sides of the debate are indeed heard and so to the extent that we squash one side of the debate basically then we move toward a form of authoritarianism or totalitarianism and that is inconsistent if you will with the ideas behind the first amendment classic viewpoint discrimination is what's taking place right now classic viewpoint discrimination you can hear one side of the bait we're not going to let you hear the other side of the debate but here's what's all and again i want to thank the good folks at rumble who listen you got a lot of viewpoints at rumble because it's a free marketplace of ideas but and this is you know logan said this earlier with elon musk you look at twitter and some of the attempts to redo you know other platforms on twitter jordan like twitter like platforms i should say just have not worked you know what i'm just sick and tired of and it affects our whole team at the aclj it's not just me or are you but sitting out a tweet but you know from our departments when we're sending out you know really information they're putting out information for us in social media is that they are right now dancing playing a dancing game yes hoping that what we put out doesn't get flagged because we're pro-life because we're conservative because we're pro-free speech and that we might use a term about hillary clinton that they don't like or that we might use a term about uh you know hunter biden's laptop that they all said was fake news and now it's real news do you see that those stories that are the exact issue with the problem of having these at home uh phony fact checkers who pick and choose what they want to be seen as true and untrue rather than letting the american people make that decision themselves and educate themselves it's already a small group of americans that will take the time to engage in these platforms it's a very small group but it's a group of people who really do care about the issues on lots of different sides left right center and they care enough to go onto these platforms and yet now they are only getting one viewpoint served to them and we know that and look at the way in which they did it i mean in our situation harry they challenged us on two issues we were handling if anybody was going to know the case it would have been us and even then when they come back and say oh it was we shouldn't have said partly false or it was uh the one that we said totally false it wasn't totally false but we still think it was out of context which is so subjective it's ridiculous but it shows you the absurd nature of the censorship you are absolutely correct and volterra has suggested that when you allow people to believe in absurdities then it ultimately culminates in what atrocities and so it's very very imperative that we protect our foundational belief in freedom of speech because that is important for the determination of political truth that's 100 all right we appreciate it i would say this real freedom is what we care about the american surf law and justice true freedom of speech speech that you might not like we defend speech that you do like we defend that's real freedom of speech and we've gotten so far away that far away from that in woke america but we're not going to back down from that fight support our work at the aclj we're experts in the first amendment support our work double your impact your donation we need your financial support right now we're being honest and open with you we need it donate today aclj.org we'll be right back only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive and that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the american center for law and justice to defend the right to life we've created a free powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the aclj's battle for the unborn it's called mission life it will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support and the publication includes a look at all major aclj pro-life cases how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists the ramifications of roe v wade 40 years later play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry and what obamacare means to the pro-life movement discover the many ways your membership with the aclj is empowering the right to life request your free copy of mission life today online at aclj.org gift at the american center for law and justice we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad whether it's defending religious freedom protecting those who are persecuted for their faith i'm covering corruption in the washington bureaucracy and fighting to protect life in the courts and in congress the aclj would not be able to do any of this without your support for that we are grateful now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way for a limited time you can participate in the aclj's matching challenge for every dollar you donate it will be matched a ten dollar gift becomes twenty dollars a fifty dollar gift becomes 100 this is a critical time for the aclj the work we do simply would not occur without your generous support take part in our matching challenge today you can make a difference in the work we do protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family give a gift today online at aclj.org i think this is where it goes back to this fundamental idea is that more and more of us uh are do feel like we should communicate electronically use these social media platforms as a place like a public forum but what we've learned now dad over these past few years with the censorship of the conservative message is that they aren't by law treated like traditional public forums and while we have people like elon musk out there interested in doing it we've also seen how difficult it is because of who controls the server companies it's the same companies that are silencing the messaging no that's exactly right and if we look at the history of free speech it was always the public forum the public forums that were these marketplace of ideas the truth of the matter is the social media platforms are the marketplace of ideas we're talking about censorship and i just will hanes our producer just sends me you know vladimir putin's official President of russia twitter page they're invading ukraine killing thousands of people that page is up they're not putting false statement on these i'm like maybe they have i'm scrolling i don't see it so annie the whole idea of a marketplace of ideas has radically changed yes it has it's changed significantly jay but insane point of fact this twitter's and rumble and facebook and youtube has been great about they've been great for us but i'm saying they're all the marketplace of ideas yes every one of these is a marketplace of ideas and they're analogous to what was the streets the parks the sidewalks the places that were conditioned and said by the supreme court of the united states as early as the hague versus cio case which is a seminal case i'm a lawyer i look at law in 1939 the privilege of citizens to use the streets and parks for national questions must not be abridged or denied that was said by the supreme court in 1939 public assembly of people who want to exchange their opinions cannot be prevented or prohibited because of someone saying that they don't like to hear what the content of your speech is arbitrary suppression of free expression on national affairs on domestic affairs uncontrolled suppression of free speech and things of that nature that we are seeing happening is the kind of thing that historically has been anathema to the supreme court they want us to have these things and these uh areas like twitter and so forth these platforms are really suppressing us and suppressing the ideas from the right replaced these huge big tech platforms have replaced the marketplace of ideas now they're not government controlled so the first amendment issues don't apply like that but regulatory issues could there are regulatory ways to encourage free free access and free marketplace of ideas to these big tech companies i think there are ways to do that and one of those may be the elimination of section 230 but andy just gave a very direct statement of what the marketplace of idea was designed to protect it was designed to protect divergent viewpoints points of view you disagreed with you handle that with the speech you do agree with but you don't shut it down and that's what's happening now yeah let's go to the phones matthew and florida online too matthew welcome to secular you're on the air thank you gentlemen i appreciate the the content of today's discussion i just want to tell you i've been suspended on twitter 14 times and every time there's no phone call there's there's no phone number you can call there's no kind of accountability to their suspension processes they're not uniform they're they're very subjective and they're they did you send an email there's no there's no email response there's nothing they can suspend you with impunity be platform you and have no consequences they are the unaccountable sensor they are the unaccountable sensor it's like in in the 50s and 60s on radio they had the and tv they had the the companies had their sensors and it's now you have andy these are the unaccountable sensors look we have to deal with these tech companies when we do get these flags put on us or these you know false statements yeah go ahead what's what's new is and is developed over the last couple years is that there used to be account managers so for groups like ours it wouldn't help matthew but there used to be for groups like ours that were had these large presences on social media some of the most shared content we had someone we could go to at a facebook or twitter they've all pulled back from that so they've gotten rid of these account managers that you could work with directly you have to be a pretty darn big organization now to to be able to even get into the conversation about getting these false flags removed that's because they become the modern sensors without accountability they have and they're really what what i've read about them and i and i use this expression they are the tech tyrants that's really what they are the tech tyrants of today the modern sensors from roman times we had sensors we have censorship today but it's censorship of the conservative right you don't see them censoring the left you don't see the liberal democratic media being censored they're telling us what we can and cannot discuss in the new public forum the airways the new public forum is what these various platforms that i enumerated and they are simply saying that because we don't like what you say whether we we think or not that it ought to be said we're going to shut it down well i know jay you said that's not government action and you're correct that is what the first amendment talks but isn't it really tantamount to government action when they are really using the public space it's monopolistic and the nature of the control they have let's go ahead and take kim's phone call jordan hey kim's calling from michigan hey kim welcome to secular you're on the air hi thank you hi i am i did mention i am an attorney um and my background is in journalism um mostly academic but i've always looked up to j speculo thank you um i i think your dog does too i hear your dog barking but go ahead that's all right she went to the other room but i do want to say i've been watching this for a year it's been concerning me and really bothering me i i think they are intentionally stepping into the shoes of the government and i think you know just as an example without knowing all the nuances of your case i think they're intentionally trying to interfere with sixth amendment rights with the right of confrontation with the with with the concept of cross-examination i think that's intentional so should there i i think should i guess my question in and i'd like to hear your your discussion on this is should their damages be limited to just you know not having section 230 protection this i think is the great debate the great debate now is the tooth section 230 immunity from liability is does that need to go in the tech companies want that in there andy because that's their shield yes that's the protection they go and say well we've got a statutory protection against that and that's our shield but you are kim your analysis is perfectly right and i think it's intentional there's no doubt about it they are stepping into the shoes of what used to be the government and what the supreme court of the united states says as i said as early as hague versus cio in 1939 said cannot be done and that is the suppression of free ideas in the public square in the public marketplace now the social media platforms that's what they have become and developed into you know folks we're not again we're not just talking about this issue we are going to be diving right in and we're going to be looking at one this section 230 but also what else can be done because again you've got financial relationships a lot of the groups that you're talking to you know you spend money on advertising and and uh placement to grow your social media platform and then all of a sudden they decide well you're no longer gonna your information is no longer going to be served to people the people that asked for that information i mean that's the other part of this is people have to follow you on twitter they have to like your page on facebook they have to sign up to get your notifications they take those active steps and then these sensors still step in so they're censoring both the organization in our case but also they're censoring you from being able to access that information so i want you to support our work this is a it's a very new battle but it's one that begins with the same premise and that the aclj has always started with the idea of our first amendment free speech rights and protecting those at all costs support our work at aclj.org we have a matching challenge this month we are running behind we need your financial support donate today aclj.org at the american center for law and justice we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad for a limited time you can participate in the aclj's matching challenge for every dollar you donate it will be matched a ten dollar gift becomes twenty dollars a fifty dollar gift becomes one hundred you can make a difference in the work we do protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family give a gift today on line at aclj.org