If they fail to do so, Johnson and 60 million NRB members will engage in a massive campaign to strip the companies of the “Good Samaritan” legal protections they currently enjoy, he said.
The Tech giants deny that conservative news is being censored on their platforms, but there is no shortage of evidence to the contrary.
A recently leaked internal document from Google entitled, “The Good Censor,” has revealed their intent to suppress conservative and Christian views.
NRBTV, the NRB’s former livestream channel itself, was deleted without explanation last year. “They never gave an adequate explanation. It had something to do with terrorism,” Johnson explained.
Johnson has addressed letters to all the company leaders, calling on them to “implement their own free speech charter governing their content moderation,” or face losing their Good Samaritan status. NRB is ready to petition Congress for “a review of the ‘Good Samaritan’ section of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act” if they do not listen.
Under this section, such companies are not only free from liability of what users post, but free to moderate “offensive” content for “Good Samaritan” purposes.
Johnson says the problem lies with section 230 and has repeatedly urged tech leaders to support free speech of their own volition.
In an NRB press release, Johnson said that “if major tech corporations continue to effectively ignore substantiated cries of viewpoint suppression – intentional or not, algorithmic or human – then I believe it’s time for a remedy.” A review of Section 230 is preferable to “possibly heavy-handed government interventions,” he added.
According to Johnson, NRB has 40 documented cases of internet censorship, but that “does not include every verifiable example of viewpoint suppression, and we believe it is actually only ‘the tip of the iceberg’ with many more instances of censorship going unreported by people who feel they have no recourse.”
He said there there was no comparable list on the Left. “Is [MSNBC host] Al Sharpton being blocked? Has the ACLU been blocked? Has Planned Parenthood been blocked? They’re not censoring [MSNBC host] Rachel Maddow,” Johnson noted.
Johnson says Good Samaritan protections, like section 230, only made sense when tech companies were not acting as the arbiters of morality and truth on the internet.
Removing Section 230 would mean that tech executives would face legal action for the content posted to their platforms. “They are clearly abusing their power. The remedy for something like that is always messy,” Johnson said.
Essentially, the NRB argues that if you want to be protected under the law, you need to uphold your end of the bargain, and grant free speech to everyone, he explained.
Tech leaders maintain that their companies are not censoring conservatives and their “rules” are applied equally to everyone, but the bias has become obvious.
An independent journalist Laura Loomer was recently banned by Twitter for criticising Ilhan Omar, a because she supports female genital mutilation and Sharia Law.
