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February 4, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – As conservative concerns about the power of internet giants to control information reach unprecedented heights, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has unveiled the most comprehensive legislative plan yet to curb Big Tech.
The Blaze reports that the proposals DeSantis announced Tuesday include requiring greater transparency regarding changes to content standards, terms of service, and the reasons for enforcement actions against users; requiring that platforms offer the option to opt out of algorithms that manipulate a user’s likelihood of seeing certain content; and empowering Florida residents to bring lawsuits and the state attorney general to bring Unfair & Deceptive Trade Practices actions against internet companies for violating these terms.
DeSantis also proposed several ways of bringing the actions of giants like Facebook and Google in line with existing campaign finance laws, such as daily $100,000 fines for deplatforming any candidate for office in the state, daily fines for suppressing or prioritizing content related to any political cause or candidate, and recording as political contributions the monetary value of any promotion by a company of any candidate for office.
#Thread @GovRonDeSantis Announcing Steps The State Of Florida Will Take To Deal With Big Tech
“These platforms have played an increasingly decisive role in elections, and have negatively impacted Americans who dissent from orthodoxies favored by the Big Tech Cartel.” 1/ pic.twitter.com/Z0npEPL3c9
— The Columbia Bugle ���� (@ColumbiaBugle) February 2, 2021
.@GovRonDeSantis On The Destruction Of Parler By Big Tech & Big Tech's Ability To Completely Wipe Out The Platform Of A Political Candidate They Don't Like 6/ pic.twitter.com/mcWOxbW7La
— The Columbia Bugle ���� (@ColumbiaBugle) February 2, 2021
PETITION UPDATE (2/23/21) -
LifeSite has signed on to a Media Research Center (MRC) letter to all 50 state Attorneys General, calling for an investigation into Big Tech.
Google, Facebook, and Twitter have monopolized the industry, and are using their influence to collect user data, suppress content, and silence those who voice ideas and beliefs counter to their own.
As we urged prior, action must be taken to combat these efforts, and that is why we’ve joined the MRC in this fight.
Please take a couple of minutes to READ this LifeSiteNews article about MRC's initiative: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/lifesite-joins-effort-asking-state-attorneys-general-to-investigate-big-tech-for-deceptive-trade-practices
Then, please SIGN and STOP using Twitter, Facebook, Google (YouTube) and Amazon to take back your privacy and freedom of speech!
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PETITION UPDATE (2/9/21) -
YouTube just completely removed the LifeSiteNews YouTube channel. This isn’t a ban, every single one of our videos is completely gone. Being completely removed from YouTube means we’ve lost access to 300,000+ followers.
This is the latest and appalling affront to free speech which is happening to many conservative and Christian organizations.
Please SIGN this petition and STOP using YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Google (owner of YouTube) and Amazon to take back your privacy and freedom of speech!
We are not going to take this lying down!
Thankfully, we have backups of all our videos:
You can watch our current videos on Rumble, here: https://rumble.com/user/LifeSiteNews
Or on our LifeSiteNews Catholic Rumble channel, here: https://rumble.com/user/LifeSiteNewsCatholic
You can also sign-up to receive email alerts about our recent videos here: https://bit.ly/LifeSiteVideoSub
Please help us build Rumble and our other alternative platforms by donating through our secure link: https://give.lifesitenews.com/
After you SIGN this petition, please also see our 'Goodbye Google' resources to find out how to quit Big Tech and learn more about good alternatives!
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PETITION UPDATE (1/26/20) -
Twitter has again locked LifeSiteNews out of two of our accounts on the platform for displaying a message noting that President Joe Biden’s newly named Assistant Secretary of Health “Rachel” Levine is a man.
Both accounts displayed a simple message which read: “Biden names transgender ‘woman’ as Assistant Secretary of Health. ‘Rachel’ Levine is a father of two who divorced his wife in 2013 after 30 years of marriage.” The tweets also included a link to LifeSite’s article Biden names transgender ‘woman’ as Assistant Secretary of Health, and contained part of the opening sentence of that article, “Joe Biden has announced his intention to appoint a gender-confused man” as Assistant Secretary of Health.
For stating biological or Biblical truths, Twitter and Big Tech are trying to shut down conservative voices.
Therefore, it is now more important than ever to consider dumping Twitter, Google (who own YouTube) and Facebook. To be clear: LifeSite is still using Twitter and Big Tech to encourage others to migrate away from these illiberal platforms.
This is not the first time that LifeSiteNews has been censored by Twitter. In December 2019, Twitter indefinitely suspended our account for a tweet that linked to an article on transgender activist Jonathan “Jessica” Yaniv.
At the time, Twitter gave LifeSite the option to delete the tweet and reactivate our account right away. LifeSite remained steadfast that the tweet did not violate any of the company’s “rules and policies,” and sought several appeals with Twitter, while looking into legal action against the company.
And, while LifeSite's account was eventually restored, we must now consider what course of action we will pursue in this case, over and above appealing the ban.
Meanwhile, since taking office on Wednesday last week, Joe Biden has already signed an executive order which will force women’s athletic programs, restrooms, and locker rooms to be open to men. He has also turned back the Trump administration’s policy protecting women’s sports programs in schools.
Last week, LifeSite was banned for two weeks from our YouTube channel, after the site determined that one of our videos about vaccines violated YouTube’s “community guidelines.” We are also in the middle of appealing this ban.
Please considering SIGNING and SHARING this petition. Thank you!
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Twitter just deplatformed President Trump premanently! And, other conservatives, including General Flynn and Sidney Powell, were also summarily deplatformed.
Conservatives, Christians and freedom-loving Americans of all political persuasions must now take a decision to preserve their free speech AND their ability to peaceably assemble by dumping Twitter and Big Tech, and by finding other good alternatives to communicate with each other and share their opinions.
Please SIGN our petition-pledge to Dump Twitter and Big Tech, and take back your freedom of speech and privacy. [CLICK HERE for our "Goodbye Google" resources page to find good alternatives to Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, and Google!]
When you use Twitter or Facebook to communicate, and, or, Google and Amazon to search for something online, these companies can stifle your ability to share your thoughts and opinions and manipulate your search results, threatening your privacy, your freedom of speech, and even our democracy.
Evidence suggests that Twitter and Facebook's 'community guidelines' are selectively enforced against conservatives and Christians, while Google rigs their search algorithms to direct traffic away from conservative and Christian websites, effectively choking traffic to those sites.
Simply put, Twitter, Facebook, Google (who owns YouTube) and Amazon appear to be actively suppressing access to pro-freedom, pro-family and pro-life news and opinion.
Don't contribute to this assault on democracy: Stop using Twitter, Facebook, Google and Amazon as your default social media platforms and search engine! [CLICK HERE to find a good alternative to Google.]
To repeat: a few liberal and completely unaccountable computer programmers in Silicon Valley are dictating what we do and do not see in our Twitter and Facebook feeds, and in our Google searches.
We, here, at LifeSite, also recently had our Twitter account suspended by the company over "misgendering" a man who claims to be a woman.
LifeSite has also experienced a fall-off in Google search-related traffic since the company updated its search algorithms at the beginning of May.
And, since the November election, Twitter and Big Tech appear to have dramatically INCREASED their censorship of conservatives and Christians as the President Trump disputed the results of the election and when evidence of election fraud began to mount.
Now, it seems likely that they are trying to cut-off conservative leaders (like President Trump) from conservatives on the ground, and effectively exclude us from the national conversation.
But, this tactic will not work. Because Twitter, Facebook, Google and Amazon are not the only game in town! There are a good number of excellent alternatives which we list in our 'Goodbye Google' Resources page.
The great irony is that, while Twitter, Facebook, Google and Amazon executives talk a lot about maintaining freedom of speech and diversity, in fact, these hypocrites are ATTACKING free speech point-blank!
This kind of manipulation poses a lethal threat to our democracy, but as we see so clearly now, Twitter and Big Tech have shown no hesitation in excluding conservatives and Christians from the public square.
So, at this point, the only way to stop Twitter, Facebook, Google and Amazon is to quit using their platform.
Please SIGN and SHARE this petition to pledge to stop using Twitter and Big Tech. Then, please CLICK HERE to find alternative search engines and social media platforms. Thank you!
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Follow LifeSiteNews on these alternative channels:
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Gab: https://gab.com/LifeSiteNews
MeWe: https://mewe.com/i/lifesitenewscom1
Rumble: https://rumble.com/user/LifeSiteNews
Parler: parler.com/profile/lifesitenews (currently down due to Amazon removing their web hosting)
Ready to say "Goodbye Google"? Find alternatives for search engines, browsers, email, and more: https://lifefacts.lifesitenews.com/goodbye-google/resources/
'BREAKING: Twitter permanently bans President Trump from platform' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-twitter-permanently-bans-president-trump-from-platform
WATCH LifeSite's exclusive series - 'Big Tech vs Free Speech' - of interviews with experts on how Big Tech censorship is killing free speech: https://www.lifesitenews.com/bigtech/
From YouTube to social media and beyond, online censorship is rampant. Read the latest articles covering this ongoing struggle: https://lifefacts.lifesitenews.com/goodbye-google/censorship/
“At the turn of the 21st century, online technology represented tools to liberate Americans from reliance on distrusted legacy media outlets,” DeSantis said. “As social media proliferated over the past decade, citizens could directly connect with large numbers of people and could cut out corporate media outlets entirely. Over the years, however, these platforms have changed from neutral platforms that provided Americans with the freedom to speak to enforcers of preferred narratives.”
“Silicon Valley CEOs wield extraordinary power, to the point of holistically controlling the flow of vast swaths of information in our country,” he declared. “In a matter of hours, a business can be dismantled, a community of friends and colleagues canceled, and even a sitting president of the United States silenced.
“By their own admission, social media companies view themselves as platforms of global, regional, and local connectivity,” DeSantis went on. “Make no mistake, they are nothing more than advertising conglomerates, and I'm not interested in handing over the keys to the public square to a bunch of companies whose economic interests are not aligned with the public interest.”
DeSantis using an old-school state fraud statute as a hook to bring suits against Big Tech is ingenious. I’ve had several discussions in the past with conservative lawyers who have made precisely this argument, but a major Republican politician taking up the mantle is a big deal.
— Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) February 3, 2021
Big Tech’s suppression of and discrimination against conservative speech has been a topic of growing concern ever since former President Donald Trump’s 2016 victory was attributed in part to his use of Twitter to spread his message, and accelerated over the past year as Google, Facebook, and Twitter appointed themselves arbiters of “misinformation” pertaining to the COVID-19 outbreak and election integrity.
Since the election, and particularly the January 6 riot at the US Capitol building, those efforts have accelerated further still. The riot has been used as a pretext to ban Trump from Twitter, force alternative social network Parler offline, and more. Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker went so far as to call for “more than deplatforming” Trump and his allies.
Taking on Big Tech is likely to be a political boon for DeSantis, who is already considered by many on the Right an early frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, thanks to his conservative record in office, his handling of the COVID-19 without intensive lockdowns, and his knack for parrying hostile media.