Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk spoke to Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow in Tuesday’s episode of The Charlie Kirk Show, where the two discussed the looming threat of big tech censorship, and its cooperation with the communist regime in China, among other issues.
“When it comes to this tech issue, if you extrapolate the authoritarian streak that we know to be true, they’re all leftists,” said Kirk. “What’s to prevent Google from waking up on Election Day and saying we don’t want Donald Trump to be president?”
“There’s nothing as of now,” responded Marlow. “The leading researcher on this is a guy named Robert Epstein — he is a Democrat, he voted for Hillary Clinton, and he has noted that Google cooks search. And they’ve admitted now that a lot of the algorithm is hand design. It’s not just some sort of robot god that we have to trust, as if that’s such a great thing away.”
“You know what’s a great, interesting point? The left almost worships that whole apparatus as some sort of religious entity,” noted Kirk.
The two went on to discuss what could be done about big tech censorship.
“Some people say, ‘We must do nothing, because of our principles,'” said Kirk of conservatives who argue against the government intervening in big tech censorship.
Marlow offered his take on the matter:
Yes, and this is crucial, and sometimes there is cognitive dissonance. It’s hard to square a couple of ideas at the same time, but we can be for limited government and also be anti-monopoly, anti-authoritarianism. And when you have companies like Google, trying to do a rigged search engine for the Communist Party in China — called Project Dragonfly — that they keep reviving — but they won’t help our own Pentagon — it’s all you need to know.
“So we have to ask the question, why are we limited government?” said Kirk. “We’re limited government because we want our natural rights to be protected, not infringed upon. Okay, so we’re actually limited power, if you think about it. Isn’t Google power?”
“They certainly seem very powerful,” said Marlow.
“I don’t think that’s that big of a philosophical jump to go from,” noted the TPUSA founder. “We’re actually limited power, pro-freedom. So if Google is infringing on freedom…”
“And that’s what drives me every morning, is freedom, and that’s what drove Andrew [Breitbart] every morning,” said Marlow. “I’m a conservative across the board, but I don’t wake up in the morning thinking about my conservatism. I wake up in the morning thinking about freedom.”
“Freedom informs our conservatism,” added Kirk. “And I’m afraid at times; people are now saying, ‘My conservatism informs my freedom.'”
Kirk and Marlow later discussed the left’s perceived assessment of big tech.
“Here’s the other thing I want to get your take on,” said Kirk to Marlow. “Some people on the right say, ‘I totally agree with the left when it comes to big tech,’ that we might want to regulate or break it up — but we need to ask the question, ‘Why does Elizabeth Warren want to break up big business?’ Because of her love of freedom? Or her hatred of big business?”
Marlow noted that he does not agree with the position that breaking up big tech companies is a place of agreement with the left. He elaborated:
I see the way Breitbart is treated just for being allowed on Facebook’s news feed, and it’s all so unnecessarily dramatic by the left. They’re just so outraged over it, that you would have one outlet that’s, according to Amazon’s Alexa.com, a top five news outlet in the country — Breitbart — that you would be allowed to put their scoops in your Facebook news feed. Why that would be an outrage to people is purely because of political censorship. So, I think the left would like more political censorship.
“What happens when business infringes on people’s rights?” asked Kirk.
Marlow offered his remarks:
And that’s what’s happening across the board in these companies. They’ve become the de facto arbiters of — let’s take the First Amendment for example — freedom of speech. If you have freedom of speech — but the vast majority of speech is now taking place on these platforms, and you’re not allowed to participate on those platforms, then how do you really have freedom of speech?
Marlow added that he believes the “public square” has been outsourced to platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google.
“And they discriminate, pretty much openly, against our views,” said Marlow of the big tech companies.
“You guys have been ahead of the curve on China, ahead of the curve on immigration, ahead of the curve on tech. What are you ahead of the curve on now?” asked Kirk, who went on to mention that he believes it is that “a lot of people on the right are now questioning money flows to certain candidates and institutions.”
“Google has stated that they have a strategy of trying to influence the right by trying to fund them,” confirmed Marlow.
You can listen to the Kirk and Marlow’s discussion on The Charlie Kirk Show.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.