Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) continued his campaign to pressure Reddit to reverse its politically biased censorship of r/The_Donald, the website’s largest conservative, pro-Trump community of 700,000-plus members, writing an op-ed for RealClearPolitics condemning the site’s actions.
Reddit, which allows users to create self-moderated communities called “subreddits,” put the massive pro-Trump community r/The_Donald under “quarantine” earlier this year, limiting the sitewide reach of its posts.
Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) called on Reddit to reverse its censorship in a letter to its CEO, Steve Huffman earlier this month.
In his new op-ed, Rep. Banks repeated his condemnation of Reddit’s censorship.
“Reddit administrators’ decision to “quarantine” r/The_Donald, a subreddit forum for fans of President Trump and Reddit’s largest conservative community, is a recent and egregious example of social media sites meddling in political affairs,” wrote Rep. Banks.
The Indiana representative went on to say that Reddit’s actions constitute election interference
“According to a Senate Intelligence Committee report, over a year-long period the 3,900 [Russian Internet Research Agency]-connected Twitter accounts posted 600,000 tweets regarding Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Well, researchers from the University of Alabama calculated that from July 2016 to February 2017 r/The_Donald was responsible for an estimated 2,771,030 tweets linking to news stories.”
“Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is set to influence conversation about the 2020 election on Twitter 4.5 times as much as Vladimir Putin influenced the 2016 electoral conversation.”
Banks concluded by urging legislative action from Republicans, writing that “nobody else will stand up for us.”
“It’s time to start exploring legislative solutions to big tech’s bias. The alternative is accepting a status quo where enormous corporations use their publishing power to favor Democratic presidential candidates.”
Are you an insider at Reddit or any other tech company who wants to confidentially reveal wrongdoing or political bias at your company? Reach out to Allum Bokhari at his secure email address allumbokhari@protonmail.com.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News.
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