No One Is Silencing the Far-Right. It’s Louder Than Ever.
The fight against ‘anti-conservative bias’ is GamerGate all over again
Politico recently reported that the Trump White House is planning an executive order to “address allegations of anti-conservative bias by social media companies.” As an anonymous White House official told the outlet: “If the internet is going to be presented as this egalitarian platform and most of Twitter is a liberal cesspool of venom, then at least the president wants some fairness in the system.”
What sounds like a reasonable request is anything but. In reality, fighting alleged anti-conservative bias on social platforms is the chapter in an ideological war, fuelled by conspiracy theory. Like GamerGate before it, this latest conversation about online ethics is quickly turning into a vehicle to defend extremism.
The belief that technology platforms are trying to silence right-wing opinions has its genesis in 2016. As Trump was running for president a source told Gizmodo that Facebook’s “trending topics” editorial team was actively suppressing right-wing news outlets. In response, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with a handful of mainstream conservative commentators and positioned his platform as one that welcomes “all ideas,” and that its success “depends on everyone feeling…
