Trump Campaign Manager Brad Parscale: Google, Facebook and Twitter ‘Direct Threat to a Free Society’

President Donald Trump’s 2020 Campaign Manager, Brad Parscale, stated in a recent op-ed that the Silicon Valley Masters of the Universe pose a real threat to democracy and online freedom.

In an op-ed published in USA Today, Brad Parscale, President Trump’s 2016 Digital Media Director and 2020 Presidential Campaign Manager, discussed how the Silicon Valley tech firms could pose a real threat to democracy and online freedom. In the article, Parscale notes that as social media has become more popular, tech firms have worked to control what is considered acceptable discussion and discourse online. Parscale states that this is a direct threat to a free society and that the worst offender is Google.

Parscale writes:

As the internet has become an increasingly central part of modern life, Big Tech giants such as Facebook, Twitter and Google have increasingly sought to become the gatekeepers of the internet and political discourse. Without any sort of democratic mandate, these companies have appointed themselves the arbiters of acceptable thought, discussion and searches online.

These companies’ pervasive command of the internet — and blatant desire to control how we interact with it — is a direct threat to a free society. And arguably the worst offender is Google.

Google claims to value free expression and a free and open internet, but there is overwhelming evidence that the Big Tech giant wants the internet to be free and open only to political and social ideas of which it approves.

 

Parscale also notes a number of instances in which Google appeared to show bias against Republicans and in favor of Democrats such as Hillary Clinton:

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Google was accused of manipulating search results to favor Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. Also, research at Harvard University found that Google’s search rankings are not objective, and in 2017, the company was fined billions of dollars by the European Union for manipulating search results.

Google also maintains at least nine shadowy blacklists that affect what the public sees when using its search engine.

 

Parscale finishes the op-ed by calling on American citizens to voice their disapproval of Google’s alleged biases and to stand up for free speech regardless of their political affiliation:

Google’s broad and pervasive role in the lives of almost every American today cannot be overstated. More than 90 percent of all online searches are conducted through Google or YouTube. The media giant’s video-sharing site has 1 billion active users a month, many of whom go there to learn and share conservative ideas only to find their quest for knowledge subverted by faceless ideologues.

Google is clearly manipulating and controlling the political narrative in favor of Democrats and the left, and silencing conservatives and Republicans. A company with such power and influence cannot simply be allowed to play the biased gatekeeper of political discourse.

Americans who believe in a truly open society and internet won’t stand for it any longer.

Read the full op-ed in USA Today here.