Politics

Glenn Greenwald Slams ‘Big Media’ For ‘Aggressively’ Agitating ‘Big Tech’ Censorship Of Small Competitors

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Brandon Gillespie Media Reporter
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Glenn Greenwald, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and co-founder of The Intercept, said Friday that “Big Media” companies are silencing smaller competitors through “agitated” censorship by “Big Tech” companies.

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on protecting competition in the press, Greenwald and journalist Clay Travis answered questions from committee members, including Republican Utah Rep. Burgess Owens, who asked about ending “cancel culture” and protecting the freedom of speech. (RELATED: Glenn Greenwald Says ‘I Consider Tucker Carlson To Be A Socialist’)

Owens began by asking how Greenwald and Travis see the country getting control of “cancel culture” and having “freedom of speech again,” so that people “can speak freely without the feeling of being attacked.”

Travis responded first, saying that people are scared to share their opinions on social media and are terrified to say what they think because of the “stifled” environment that’s been created. He added that “Big Tech” has helped to create a “censorious universe” that punishes people by removing them from conversations and, potentially, their workplace.

Greenwald followed, explaining the relationship between “Big Media” and “Big Tech” when it comes to empowering the act censorship.

“The one point I’d like to emphasize, congressman, about all of that is Big Media, the largest media corporations in the United States, are not opposed to the censorious behavior of Big Tech. Quite the contrary. They’re the ones who have agitated for it most aggressively,” Greenwald said.

“If you ask people in Silicon Valley they will tell you they would, all other things being equal, prefer to be out of the business of content moderation, and have been pressured by Big Media companies, both for ideological and competitive reasons, to silence others who might compete with these large outlets in the name of diversity,” he continued.

Greenwald concluded by urging the committee to consider the “concern for the viability of local media outlets” and focus on “empowering them to sustain themselves,” not the “actors who are causing so many of the problems.”

Censorship from “Big Tech” companies has become a heavily covered topic since multiple platforms, including Twitter, banned former President Donald Trump and others following the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Thousands of “conservative” Twitter users were purged from the platform for supposedly breaking the Coordinated Harmful Activity policy. Some politicians have vowed to “crack down” on Big Tech, with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis calling them the “Big Tech cartel.”