Another group heavily funded by George Soros, liberal billionaire, is joining a growing network that he funds and calls on Big Tech to do more in order to censor “disinformation” about the election before the midterms.
Global Witness, a leftist group, released a piece of propaganda co-authored with New York University’s Cyber Security for Democracy team. It complained that Facebook and TikTok were not censoring enough. The Oct. 21 press release by the group, headlined “Facebook & TikTok fail ti block deceptive ads using blatant US midterms misinformation,” claimed that its “investigation” was designed to determine if social media platforms live up to their promises to stop disinformation from destabilizing democratic processes. Global Witness received $17,657,000 from Soros’ Open Society Foundations between 2016 and 2020. The group has offices in London and Washington D.C.
The group complained that TikTok had “approved 90% of ads featuring misleading or false election disinformation”, while Facebook allegedly “approved a substantial number of similarly inaccurate, false ads.” Global Witness Senior Advisor John Lloyd attempted to create fear about a possible threat to “democracy,” if Big Tech companies did not up the ante in their censorship operations.
It’s high time they cleaned up their houses and began properly resourcing the detection of and prevention from disinformation before it’s too late. Their willingness to take action is the key to our democracy.
Multiple media outlets, including The Hill and The New York Times, retorted Global Witness’ talking points and did not mention Soros’ financial ties.
The New York Times: “TikTok failed most misleading political ads in a testing run by researchers.”
The Hill: “TikTok and Facebook failed to remove election misinformation ads: report.”
Fortune: “TikTok allowed through 90% of ads spreading baseless allegations around U.S. Midterms, new study finds.”
Associated Press: “Report by TikTok: TikTok fails to cull US election misinformation advertisements.”
The Guardian: “We risk another crisis”: TikTok is in danger of being a major vector of election misinformation.
Global Witness praised YouTube’s obsession with censoring political content, while still finding space to suggest that it doesn’t go far enough in censoring Brazilian election content. Could it be that Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian president, is an ally to former U.S. President Donald Trump. Bolsonaro is currently involved in a highly contested election to defeat the disgraced and leftist former Brazilian President LuizInacio “Lula” Da Silva.
Global Witness and C4D reported that YouTube was the only platform to detect the ads and suspend the channel carrying them. However, this is in stark contrast to Brazil’s record where similar ads were approved.
YouTube seems to be following the lead of Soros-funded groups. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (Soros-funded) organized an open letter on Oct. 13, signed by 11 other liberal groups, asking for Big Tech companies like YouTube “[t]ake immediate measures to curb the spreadof voting disinformation in future elections and help prevent the undermining our democracy.” LCCHR and six of the 12 signatories were also funded by Soros between 2016 and 2020.
But that’s not all.
YouTube was also under pressure by the Soros-funded International Fact-Checking Network of the liberal Poynter Institute for Media Studies. Jan. 12, the IFCN sent an open letter to YouTube requesting that it ban all speech on topics such as elections or COVID-19. “The world witnessed the effects of disinformation when a violent mob attacked the U.S. Capitol last January. The letter complained that YouTube videos supporting the “fraud” narrative were viewed more than 33 million times from the day before the U.S presidential election.
Conservatives are being attacked. Your representatives should be contacted to demand that Big Tech is held accountable to the First Amendment while ensuring transparency and equality for conservatives. Contact us at the Media Research Center contact page if you feel your voice has been blocked.
