The State of Ohio has been sued by a company representing multiple social media platforms in order to block the Social Media Parental Notification Act from taking effect.
Read MoreTag: YouTube
Social Media Parental Notification Act Set to Take Effect in Ohio
The Social Media Parental Notification Act, signed into law by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine earlier this year, is set to take effect next month in the Buckeye State.
The bill was passed as part of DeWine’s 2023-24 executive budget presented to the Ohio General Assembly.
Read MorePew Research: Many Teens Use Social Media ‘Almost Constantly’
A new study from Pew Research Center reveals that 1 in 5 American teenagers are on social media websites “almost constantly.”
As reported by Axios, the Pew survey, an online poll with a sample size of 1,453 kids in the 13-17 age range, recorded a significant rise in social media use among that particular age group compared to a previous survey in 2014 and 2015.
Read MoreCommentary: A Way to Protect Kids Online That Passes Constitutional Muster
A bipartisan group of senators is about to take Big Tech CEOs to task on Jan. 31, 2024, by having them publicly address their failures to protect kids online. And the CEOs need to! The harms social media poses to children are well documented and, at this point, indisputable—even by the companies themselves.
YouTube admits that it hosts harmful content for children and even calls for legislation to address the problems it helps create. YouTube’s CEO indicated as much when he published his “principled approach for children and teenagers.”
Read MoreChina Ramps Up Crackdown on American Tech
Over the past few months, China has escalated its efforts to exert control over American technology companies by implementing new requirements, bans and restrictions.
The Chinese government is clamping down on American technology companies by throttling their already limited access to the country’s massive economy, according to new requirements, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The country has also challenged American technology dominance by developing rivals to the latest smartphones and artificial intelligence (AI), as well as announcing export limits to key metals in July.
Read MoreMeta’s Epidemic of Chinese ‘Spamouflage’ Propaganda
Meta recently took “what appears to be the largest known cross-platform covert influence operation in the world,” off its platforms, according to the company’s quarterly Adversarial Threat Report released this week.’
The social media accounts that made up the covert influence operation — collectively dubbed “Spamouflage” — were active all over the world, including in America, major U.S. allies, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora.
Read MoreYouTube Repeatedly Censors RFK Jr. as Democratic Leaders Demand Reinstatement of 2020 Censorship
The disputed 2020 election now appears in the rearview mirror for YouTube, which is now determining what users can see relevant to the next election.
The Alphabet-owned, video-sharing site and Google sibling has censored at least two videos, and may be throttling a third, featuring Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shortly after ending a two-and-a-half-year ban on questioning the “integrity” of the last presidential election, saying it accomplished little relative to the potential harm it caused.
Read MoreYouTube Reverses Misinformation Policy, Allows Claims About 2020 Election on Platform
YouTube reversed its misinformation policy regarding content about elections on Friday and will now permit content that questions the veracity of the 2020 presidential election results, according to the company’s website.
YouTube’s parent company Google has a policy that prohibits content “advancing false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches occurred in certain past elections to determine heads of government,” and Youtube wrote in December 2020 that it would remove content that “misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.” The platform will now “stop removing” such content about the 2020 election, per its website.
Read MoreAnalysis: The RESTRICT Act Could Be Used to Shut Down Any App That Challenges the ‘Reported Result’ of an Election
The Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act (RESTRICT Act), S.686, contains language that could be used to shut down any website or app with more than 1 million users that challenges the “reported result of a Federal election” — threatening websites and apps that allow free speech on their platforms including Truth Social and Rumble, not just TikTok, the supposed reason for the legislation.
Read MoreYouTube CEO Steps Down After Nine Years
Youtube CEO Susan Wojcicki will be stepping down after a nine year stint as head of the company, Wojcicki announced in a blog post Thursday.
Wojcicki initially joined Google, Youtube’s parent company, nearly 25 years ago and worked on several projects for the company — including co-creating Google’s Image Search function and advertising technology — before joining Youtube in 2014 as its CEO, according to the blog post. Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan will be taking over as the new CEO of YouTube, while Wojcicki will step into an advisory role at YouTube’s parent companies, Google and Alphabet.
Read MoreOhio Proposal Aims to Require Verified Parental Consent Before Kids Can Use Social Media
A new proposal spearheaded by Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted would require certain online companies to obtain verified parental consent before permitting kids ages 16 and under to use their platforms.
The executive budget for 2023–24 that Governor Mike DeWine submitted last week to the Ohio General Assembly includes the Social Media Parental Notification Act.
Read MoreTruth Social Migrates to Rumble Cloud, Trump Platform Ready to Onboard Millions
Truth Social has completed a migration to a massive cloud computing infrastructure run by the video giant Rumble, clearing the way for the social platform started by former President Donald Trump to onboard millions of users quickly, officials told Just the News.
The partnership between two of the nation’s emerging free speech platforms — completed this week — means Truth Social will be ending its beta testing and controlled account creation and moving quickly to erase a backlog of consumers who have been waiting a few weeks to join the platform.
Read MoreOnce a Cable News Darling, Dr. Fauci Now Relegated to Local TV and YouTube Broadcasts
Until very recently, NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci was a fixture on cable news, but all of a sudden, he’s all but disappeared from public view.
This has not gone unnoticed on social media.
Read MoreBig Tech Censored Dozens of Doctors, over 800 Accounts for COVID-19 ‘Misinformation,’ Study Shows
Major technology companies and social media platforms have removed, suppressed or flagged the accounts of over 800 prominent individuals and organizations, including medical doctors, for COVID-19 misinformation, according to a new study from the Media Research Center (MRC).
MRC’s Free Speech America CensorTrack, an initiative that monitors acts of censorship across online platforms, identified over 41 instances between March 2020 and February 2022 in which doctors, scientists and medical organizations were censored, according to the results of a study shared with Daily Caller News Foundation.
Read MoreGoogle Kicks Dan Bongino Off Ads Platform Days After YouTube Ban
Google temporarily suspended conservative talk show host Dan Bongino’s website, Bongino.com, from its ads service, a company spokesperson confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation on Friday.
“We have strict publisher policies in place that explicitly prohibit misleading and harmful content around the COVID-19 pandemic and demonstrably false claims about our elections,” the spokesperson said. “When publishers persistently breach our policies we stop serving Google ads on their sites. Publishers can always appeal a decision once they have addressed any violating content.”
The spokesperson added that while Google would not disclose the specific offending content on Bongino.com, the website had been subject to frequent reviews and Google had flagged content in violation of its policies.
Read MoreDan Bongino Permanently Banned from YouTube
Conservative talk show host Dan Bongino had both of his YouTube accounts permanently banned Wednesday, a YouTube spokesperson confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Bongino’s second channel, the Dan Bongino Show Clips, was initially suspended and demonetized for seven days after Bongino posted a video in which he said masks were “useless” in stopping the spread of the coronavirus, violating YouTube’s COVID-19 misinformation policy. Bongino then attempted to upload a video within the seven-day suspension period on his main channel, resulting in a permanent ban for both accounts, a YouTube spokesperson confirmed to the DCNF.
Read MoreYouTube Demonetizes Video on Missing Chinese Tennis Star
YouTube prevented a video about a missing Chinese tennis star from receiving advertising revenue on Friday.
The video, titled “Chinese Star VANISHES After Rape Accusation I Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar” and appearing on the Breaking Points channel, was demonetized early Friday, according to a tweet from the channel’s host Saagar Enjeti.
Read MoreNew York Times Hits YouTube for ‘Arbitrary’ Censorship After Left Wing Channel Gets Removed
The New York Times published an article late Thursday castigating YouTube for removing the channel of British left-wing news channel Novara Media.
The article, titled “How a Mistake by YouTube Shows Its Power Over Media,” criticized the tech platform’s “opaque and sometimes arbitrarily enforced” rules, describing the company as an information “gatekeeper.”
Read MoreLegislation Would Allow Pennsylvanians to Sue Big Tech Companies for Censorship
Two Pennsylvania state senators said recently they want to hold social media companies accountable for religious or political censorship.
Sens. Doug Mastriano, R-Gettysburg, and Scott Hutchinson, R-Oil City, said their Senate Bill 604, also called the Social Media Accountability Act, would create a private right of action to allow residents to sue social media companies like Facebook, Youtube and Twitter for banning or censoring their account due to sharing religious or political beliefs on the platform.
Read MoreGoogle and YouTube Will Demonetize Content Denying ‘Scientific Consensus’ on Climate Change
Google and YouTube announced a new policy Thursday demonetizing all content that denies the scientific consensus on climate change.
Google will no longer allow ads for “content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change,” the company announced in a support page added to its website Thursday. The policy, which Google will start enforcing next month, covers YouTube videos and websites that treat climate change as a “hoax or a scam,” content “denying that long-term trends show the global climate is warming” and content “denying that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity contribute to climate change.”
The search giant said it was implementing the policy due to pressure from advertisers, who didn’t want their products associated with content promoting climate denial.
Read MoreYouTube Deletes Ron Paul Channel, Rejects Appeal, Then Reinstates It After Getting Called Out on Twitter
YouTube deleted one of former Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s channels Thursday and denied his appeal to reinstate it, only restoring the account after Paul voiced his frustrations on Twitter.
Paul posted two screenshots on Twitter Thursday of emails sent to him by YouTube informing him his account “RonPaulInstitute” had been removed for “severe or repeated violations of our community guidelines.” A screenshot of another email appeared to show an automatic reply from YouTube informing Paul that his appeal to reinstate the account had been denied.
Read MoreYouTube Says Will Ban Posts from Prominent Anti-Vaccine Activists in Effort to Purge Misinformation
YouTube said Wednesday the platform is banning several prominent anti-vaccine activists from its platform as part of an effort to remove all content that falsely claims that approved vaccines are dangerous.
Amon the accounts being banned are those of Joseph Mercola and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to The New York Times.
Read MoreChinese-Owned TikTok Overtakes YouTube in US
After former President Donald J. Trump attempted to ban TikTok, a popular video streaming social network, the Chinese-owned company has overtaken Google-owned YouTube in popularity in the United States.
“App users in the UK and US are spending more time on TikTok than on YouTube, a new report suggests,” BBC reported. “Data from app monitoring firm App Annie indicates that average time per user spent on the apps is higher for TikTok, indicating high levels of engagement.”
Read MoreCommentary: The Battle Against Big Tech Is an Existential Fight for Conservatives
For Big Tech billionaires, these are the best of times, and the worst of times.
Why the best? Because the long arm of social media and online commerce has never reached further and deeper into Americans’ culture, spending habits, lifestyles, and worldview. Likewise, the net worth of these billionaires has risen to undreamed-of heights. COVID was, for tech barons, a blessing in disguise: it trapped Americans indoors, where they could do little else but browse the web, consume digital entertainment, and spend their stimulus dollars on imported Chinese doohickeys. Even as the dreaded virus has retreated, Big Tech has successfully locked in its gains.
Why the worst of times, though? The very rise of Big Tech has portended greater scrutiny. The debasement of Big Tech’s competitors and natural enemies—from brick-and-mortar stores to Trump supporters—has ensured that the drumbeat of criticism of social media companies and online retailers has never been more stridently percussive.
Read MoreYouTube Deletes Video on Trump’s Big Tech Lawsuit, Blocks His CPAC Speech from the Platform
YouTube deleted the American Conservative Union’s (ACU) video featuring former President Trump announcing his class-action lawsuit against Big Tech, citing an alleged violation of its COVID-19 terms and conditions.
The ACU, which hosts the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), received “a strike” on their account from YouTube on July 9, preventing them from uploading new content for a week. This includes ACU’s CPAC 2021 Part 2 in Dallas, Texas, and Trump’s CPAC speech scheduled for Sunday, the organization said in a statement.
In the deleted YouTube video of Trump’s announcement of a lawsuit against Big Tech, which includes Google, he also cited a medical study on hydroxychloroquine as a therapeutic for COVID-19.
Read MoreNBC: Bannon’s ‘War Room’ Podcast is ‘New MAGA Megaphone’
Steve Bannon’s “War Room: Pandemic” has become the focal point for Republicans eager to show their pro-Trump bona-fides, according to NBC News, which says politicians are using the podcast as a “kind of proxy primary.”
Read MoreSilicon Valley Tech Platforms Receive Failing Grades on Quarterly Censorship Report
According to a the most recent quarterly censorship report card from the Media Research Center (MRC), most of the major Silicon Valley tech titans are failing to protect freedom of expression.
“By almost any measure, the first three months of 2021 were the worst ever for online freedom. Amazon, Twitter, Apple, Google, Facebook, YouTube and others proved to the world that the Big Tech censorship of conservatives is a reality,” the group said. “And they did so in disturbing, authoritarian ways that highlight their unchecked power over information and our political process.”
Read MoreYouTube CEO Honored with ‘Free Expression’ Award as Big Tech Silences Conservatives
Despite its ongoing censorship and banning of prominent conservatives from its platform, the CEO of Google-owned YouTube collected an award for “free expression” last week.
The nonprofit Freedom Forum, which describes itself as “celebrating the world’s champions of free expression,” decided that Susan Wojcicki met that high bar.
Read MoreDeSantis and Doctors Accuse Media, Big Tech of Hiding Harm from COVID Restrictions
The media, academy and Big Tech are suppressing facts about the harms caused by COVID-19 lockdown policies, especially for younger generations, Gov. Ron DeSantis and public health experts said in a “roundtable discussion” on the novel coronavirus Monday.
These powerful American institutions are also misleading their audiences about the public health results from Florida’s open approach, which contrasted sharply with most states, they said.
The potential Republican presidential candidate hammered Google and its YouTube platform in particular for removing his earlier COVID-19 roundtable with the same doctors, branding it “misinformation.” Even some Florida news stations had their coverage removed.
Read MoreYouTube Suspends Rudy Giuliani for False Election Claims
YouTube suspended former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani again for spreading false information related to the 2020 presidential election, claiming the election was stolen.
Rudy Giuliani was suspended for repeatedly claiming the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, who President Joe Biden unseated in November, Bloomberg reported. YouTube cited its “presidential election integrity policy” and its “regulated goods policy,” alleging that Giuliani had posted content facilitating nicotine use.
Read MoreYouTube Removes New Interview with President Trump, Citing ‘Presidential Election Integrity Policy’
YouTube this week censored a recent interview with former President Donald Trump, claiming the video violated its new standards regarding allegations of election fraud.
The interview, conducted by Newsmax anchor Greg Kelly, included claims by Trump that he himself was the rightful winner of the 2020 election. Trump has repeatedly insisted that widespread voter fraud and vote-rigging tipped the scales in favor of Joe Biden during the race.
Read MoreYouTube Deletes Top Pro-Life News Outlet’s Channel for ‘Violating Our COVID-19 Misinformation Policy’
YouTube deleted a pro-life news outlet’s channel for “violating our COVID-19 misinformation policy,” a spokeswoman told the Daily Caller News Foundation Wednesday.
LifeSite News announced the ban Wednesday morning, noting that it cut the site off from its 300,000 followers.
Read MoreCommentary: The Social Media Purge Exposes Net Neutrality’s True Goal
For nearly two decades, Silicon Valley made net neutrality its highest policy priority. Under the banner of a “free and open” internet, Google, Facebook, and Twitter sought regulations to ensure the uninterrupted flow of information by treating every bit equally. Or so they said.
Beginning last Friday night, these firms and others executed an unprecedented digital purge of the social media and video accounts of their political rivals. After several years of accelerating suspensions and suppressions, this time YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter permanently banned a number of high-profile conservatives and deplatformed thousands of others, at least temporarily. Many of these accounts had nothing to do with last Wednesday’s heinous events at the Capitol. Yet their histories are erased.
Read MoreYouTube Suspends Trump Account for at Least Seven Days
YouTube became the latest social media platform to ban President Donald Trump, announcing late Tuesday that he wouldn’t be able to post new content for seven days.
YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, said it took the action against Trump because of the potential for violence to be sparked from his content. The massive video-sharing platform joined Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, Reddit and many others in suspending or banning the president, Axios reported.
Read MoreYouTube to Remove Videos Challenging 2020 Election, but ‘Russia Collusion’ Videos Left Uncensored
Tech giant and Internet video pioneer YouTube this week announced that it will begin to remove videos challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election, a policy it plans to enforce even as numerous videos remain up challenging the outcome of the 2016 election in which Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton.
Read MoreYouTube Automatically Deletes Any Comments That Contain Certain Phrases Insulting to Chinese Communist Party
YouTube’s enforcement algorithm is automatically removing any comments that contain one of two Chinese-language phrases that are critical of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
Any comment posted to YouTube, which is owned by Google, that contains the phrase “共匪,” which stands for “communist bandit,” or “五毛,” which translates to “wumao” and stands for “50-cent party,” is deleted within seconds without notification to the user, The Verge reported Tuesday.
Read MoreYouTube Yanks Viral Video of California Docs Questioning Extreme Social Distancing Measures
YouTube on Monday removed a viral video featuring two California doctors discussing why they believe that the heavy-handed measures taken to combat the coronavirus pandemic throughout the nation are unnecessary.
Read MoreCommentary: Big Tech, Privacy, and Power
The ground is shifting quickly beneath our feet when it comes to tech, privacy, and power. And, although tech companies, their advocates, and even some policymakers, would like us to imagine these issues are cut and dried, they are not.
In their book The Sovereign Individual, published on the eve of the year 2000, James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg attempt to grapple with the forthcoming technological changes that the new millennium inevitably would bring. “As technology revolutionizes the tools we use,” they wrote, “it also antiquates our laws, reshapes our morals, and alters our perceptions.”
This is the dynamic that has been unfolding slowly over the last 20 years, as Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms have transformed how we engage with communications, culture, commerce, and one another.
Read MoreNinth Circuit Court of Appeals Rules Facebook, YouTube Are Not Bound by First Amendment
Facebook, YouTube and other big tech companies are not bound to abide by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, a court ruled Wednesday, dealing a blow to conservatives online.
Read More‘Chilling and Disturbing’: YouTube Removes Video of Rand Paul Naming ‘Whistleblower’ on Senate Floor
YouTube has removed a video clip of Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) calling out Chief Justice John Roberts on the Senate floor for blocking his question naming Ukraine “whistleblower” Eric Ciaramella during the Senate impeachment trial.
Read MoreHillary Clinton Reveals How She Pressured Facebook to Spike a ‘Doctored’ Video of Pelosi
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has authoritarian views on misinformation and likely intends on reelecting President Donald Trump.
“Google took it off YouTube … so I contacted Facebook,” Clinton told The Atlantic in a report published Saturday.
Read MoreThe YouTube Channel That Never Happened
“Six hundred years ago, when elsewhere they were footing the blame for the Black Death, Casimir the Great—so-called—told the Jews they could come to Krakow. They came. They trundled their belongings into the city. They settled. They took hold. They prospered in business, science, education, the arts. With nothing they came and with nothing they flourished. For six centuries there has been a Jewish Krakow. By this evening those six centuries will be a rumor. They never happened.”
Read MoreBipartisan Lawmakers Want Google’s Internal Emails, Along With Exec’s Private Communication
Lawmakers are calling on Google, Facebook and other social media companies to turn over memos related to their business interests as Congress applies more pressure on big tech, The Washington Post reported Friday.
Read MoreLive Action Founder Lila Rose Says Facebook Censored Them with Biased Fact Checkers, Says ‘We Were Targeted’
Live Action founder and President Lila Rose said Facebook allowed abortionists to fact check Live Action content and label it as misinformation.
Facebook cited a fact check from two third-party fact checkers, telling Rose and Live Action that their statement “abortion is never medically necessary” was both inaccurate and misleading.
Read MoreYouTube Bans Nearly 18,000 Channels for ‘Hateful or Abusive’ Content
In the latest wave of social media censorship, the video-sharing giant YouTube has banned 17,818 channels that it claims were associated with “hateful or abusive” content, according to Newsbusters.
Read MoreWe Build the Wall Online ‘Wall-A-Thon’ Raises $460K and Counting
Today is the final day to view the “Wall-A-Thon” held at the border by We Build the Wall. The broadcast feed is available here. “LIVE: Broadcast from our new border security wall funded by donors! Broadcasting daily June 24th – 26th! Bookmark this page! We’re excited to update you…
Read MoreYouTube CEO Explains Why She Didn’t Nix Steven Crowder
by Chris White YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki apologized Monday to people who were offended that the company did not harshly punish conservative pundit Steven Crowder for using gay slurs in his videos. “I know the decision we made was very hurtful to LGBTQ community,” Wojcicki said during a Code…
Read MoreGoogle VP Stepped in After Employees Offended by Christian Video on Marriage
by Peter Hasson Google banned a video explaining Christian teaching on same-sex marriage from advertising on YouTube after backlash from upset employees, according to internal Google communications reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The video was flagged in June 2018 in an internal listserv, “Yes at Google,” which…
Read MoreGavin McInnes Sues SPLC for Defamation Over Hate Group Label
by Grace Carr Political commentator and writer Gavin McInnes filed a Monday lawsuit against a group dedicated to combating intolerance, alleging that its actions have contributed to his loss of employment and slandering on social media. McInnes sued the U.S. Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for its label of…
Read MorePragerU Brings New Suit Against Google in California State Court
by Peter Hasson Conservative nonprofit PragerU filed suit against Google in California court on Tuesday for allegedly violating state law in restricting access to Prager’s educational videos on YouTube, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The suit claims that YouTube’s restrictions…
Read More