Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said on Twitter today that leftists are pushing a fake “scandal” about Facebook making exceptions to its rules to justify censorship of conservatives.
“The Facebook “scandal” is a false flag intended to justify an oncoming wave of censorship against the Right,” said Rep. Gaetz on Twitter.
The Florida congressman was responding to allegations from leftists at Facebook that the site makes exceptions to its rules in order to protect political figures on the platform.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) speaks during testimony by constitutional scholars before the House Judiciary Committee in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill December 4, 2019 in Washington, DC. This is the first hearing held by the Judiciary Committee in the impeachment inquiry against U.S. President Donald Trump, whom House Democrats say held back military aid for Ukraine while demanding it investigate his political rivals. The Judiciary Committee will decide whether to draft official articles of impeachment against President Trump to be voted on by the full House of Representatives. (Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty Images)
This is a complaint made by leftists inside the company, whos constant agitation to censor Breitbart News and other conservative publications was recently revealed by the Wall Street Journal.
Via Breitbart News:
In a discussion thread called “Get Breitbart out of News Tab,” the company’s employees brainstormed new policies that would see Breitbart News ejected from the feature, which distributes news stories to users from a curated list of websites while maintaining the appearance of neutrality. One employee suggested removing websites that saw their internal “trust score” (as measured by Facebook) decline, but expressed concern that the policy might also affect CNN.
As the Wall Street Journal notes, Facebook already punishes Breitbart News in relation to its competitors by relegating it to a “second tier” of the News Tab, which only delivers news tailored to user’s interests. In other words, only users who are already interested in content similar to Breitbart’s will receive its stories, limiting Breitbart’s ability to reach new readers.
The same Wall Street Journal story revealed that Facebook introduced tools after the 2016 election that reduced the traffic of Breitbart News and other conservative publications.
The story highlighted internal Facebook research showing that if both tools were removed, it would increase traffic to Breitbart News by 20 percent, the Washington Times by 18 percent, Western Journal by 16 percent, and the Epoch Times by 11 percent. Facebook eventually removed one of the tools while keeping the other — but it is unclear which of them had the most impact on traffic.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.