Independent journalist Andy Ngo told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview that Big Tech companies compel journalists to “lie” or engage in self-censorship in order to stay on the social media platforms and not face punishment or suspension.

“What was really disturbing to me about Twitter’s content moderation before the regime change is that journalists could be actually punished for reporting the truth,” Ngo told Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow at Turning Point USA’s recent AmericaFest conference in Phoenix, Arizona.

For example, “Every year there’s a day called ‘Trans Day of Remembrance,’ which is a day where activists say that there is a genocide of trans people in the United States that is driven by white supremacy and transphobic fascism and transphobic hate,” Ngo said.

Ngo went on the say, “And I looked at the data. You have usually around three dozen homicides of trans people — each one is tragic, I’m not diminishing those deaths — but you compare that to the population: One, that’s not a genocide. Two, you look at who are the suspects who are alleged or convicted as murderers, and they’re overwhelmingly black males. That may be an inconvenient truth, it’s the truth of the data. I reported that out in 2019, and that was found to be a violation of Twitter’s ‘hate speech’ policy, so I was forced to delete it or not be on the platform. I chose ultimately to delete it.”

The independent journalist explained that everything he reported was factual.

“As we’ve learned through the Twitter Files, the rules that are outlined in the Terms of Service are open to wide interpretation from the Twitter staff,” he said.

In another example, Ngo explained that “dead naming,” which means using the name that a trans person had before they began presenting themselves as the opposite sex, is not allowed on Twitter.

“Well, in my reporting, I do crime repotting on people who use aliases, have had name changes, and it’s absolutely important to, in crime reporting, to report that somebody had a prior name, and I’ve had a violation of that,” Ngo said of Twitter’s policy on “dead naming.”

“Twitter is a powerful tool for communication and information, but it’s really actually disturbing to me that you are also compelled to lie,” he said.

Watch full interview below:

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.