Politics

Democratic Congressman Calls Social Media Bias A Conservative ‘Conspiracy Theory’

[Screenshot/YouTube/Public - User: House Judiciary Committee Hearings]

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Eric Lieberman Managing Editor
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Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland called the notion that social media platforms are biased against conservatives a “conspiracy theory” on Tuesday.

“To dedicate one of the last working days before the five-week August recess to this conservative fantasy,” Raskin said in his opening statement as vice-ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee. “Instead of examining a long list of real and pressing issues facing America beginning with the crisis caused yesterday by President Trump’s abject humiliation before the eyes of the world in his cooperation with Vladimir Putin and his choosing Putin’s narrative over that of the U.S. intelligence community and the U.S. law enforcement community.”

Raskin went on to say it is also fairly ridiculous that conservatives are complaining about a “specious claim” of anti-conservative bias at companies like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (of Google parent company Alphabet) because Republicans control almost all portions of government.

“Even if there were” evidence of bias, “it would be their right as private companies to do so, just like Sinclair and Fox News have a clear ideological bent and clearly promote their forms of censorship on their own media platforms,” Raskin continued during the hearing titled “Facebook, Google, And Twitter: Examining the Content Filtering Practices of Social Media Giants.” (RELATED: NY Times CEO: Facebook’s Fake News Algorithm Will ‘Damage’ Democracy)

He urges that the committee take time to address what he sees as substantiative issues related to these companies, such as the purported influence Russian operatives were able to have in the 2016 election, whether that is swaying voters or stoking even more divisiveness on the various platforms.

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