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The Revolving Employment Door Between Big Government, Big Media & Big Tech

March 18, 2023 by Christopher Arps Leave a Comment

The cozy relationship between the media, the Democrat Party, and big tech has become increasingly apparent in recent years, with a growing number of Americans concerned about the impact these relationships are having on our constitutional republic.

These relationships are giving the appearance of conflicting interests and raises questions of whether policies and regulations are being influenced by the interests of the parties involved.

One glaring example is the mainstream media’s efforts to censor and refuse to report on stories that don’t align with the Democrat Party’s agenda, and even actively suppressing stories that may hurt their preferred candidates.

This was evident during the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, where the mainstream media refused to report on the story until after the election.

The Democrat Party and the mainstream media have had a symbiotic relationship for literally decades.

Walter Lippmann was a prominent journalist and commentator in the early 20th century, who also served as an advisor to several U.S. presidents, including Woodrow Wilson and Lyndon B. Johnson.

Arthur Krock was a longtime Washington correspondent for The New York Times, who also served as an advisor to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. He was known for his ability to shape public opinion through his reporting.

Pierre Salinger was a prominent journalist who served as a press secretary to President John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s. After leaving the White House, he resumed his journalism career by working as a foreign correspondent for ABC News.

James Reston was a journalist for The New York Times, who also served as an advisor to President John F. Kennedy. He was known for his insight into the workings of the U.S. government.

George Stephanopoulos worked in the Clinton administration before becoming a “journalist” and anchor at ABC News. In 2015, it was revealed that he donated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation, thus raising questions about whether he could provide objective coverage of the Clintons.

Now, we’re beginning to see this same revolving door occurring between Big Tech and the government. Big tech companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google have become powerful players in politics. They have accomplished this by spending huge amounts on lobbying and by hiring former high level government officials — and their families.

Obama White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was hired by Amazon as their Senior Vice President of Global Corporate Affairs after leaving the White House.

Megan Smith, a former vice president at Google, served as President Obama’s chief technology officer of the United States.

Ben Labolt, the Biden Administration’s new communications director, was recently the personal spokesman for Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife.

New chief of staff Jeff Zients served two years on Facebook’s board. Zients reportedly resigned over company policies regarding political discourse and misinformation.

Louisa Terrell is the Administration’s legislative affairs director. Terrell was Facebook’s public policy director and a registered lobbyist for the company over a decade ago. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s daughters work for Facebook and Amazon.

Unsurprisingly, Schumer didn’t bring one antitrust measure to the floor in 2022, not even during last December’s lame duck session.

In 2021 and the first nine months of 2022, Amazon spent more money on registered federal lobbyists than any other company. Facebook’s parent Meta spent $4.6 million on lobbying in the last quarter of 2022 alone.

It’s important that Americans remain vigilant and hold the media, the Democrat party, and big tech accountable for their actions. We must demand transparency and fairness to ensure all voices are heard, not just those of an elite few.

Let Them (The Tech Giants) Fight Dot Gif!

March 16, 2023 by Sarah Lee Leave a Comment

If Americans think they’re mad at tech giants like Facebook, Google, and Twitter for censorship and suppression of speech, they should know that their anger apparently doesn’t compare to the disgust these companies have for each other.

Google, for example, is aiming its “transparency” project directly at Facebook and claiming that the embattled site is “hosting and inadvertently promoting extremist pages” by auto-creating pages for terrorist groups like the Islamic State and al Qaeda.

Facebook’s algorithm has automatically created over 100 pages for US-designated terrorist groups like Islamic State and Al-Quaeda, according to a new report by the Tech Transparency Project (TTP).
TTP is a research initiative of non-profit watchdog organization Campaign for Accountability that, according to the TTP website, “uses research, litigation and aggressive communications to expose misconduct and malfeasance in public life.” TTP began as the Google Transparency Project in 2016 and has expanded to cover several major tech companies.
The Capital Research Center [disclosure: I work for CRC], another non-profit watchdog founded during the Reagan administration, described TTP as left-leaning in its politics although the group itself does not claim to identify with a political bent.

Specifically, CRC’s Influence Watch describes the Campaign for Accountability this way:

“The Campaign for Accountability (CfA) is an ostensibly nonpartisan left-wing advocacy organization founded to expose supposed misconduct and corruption in the government and private sector. CfA typically targets conservative government officials or organizations in its investigations and has two Democratic operatives serving on its board of directors. [It] was formed by alumni of another left-wing “watchdog” organization, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) [and] is a former project of the Hopewell Fund, a left-of-center 501(c)(3) funding and fiscal sponsorship nonprofit and part of the multi-million-dollar “dark money” network managed by Arabella Advisors, a consultancy in Washington, DC. CfA has called for the investigations of dozens of conservative lawmakers and Cabinet secretaries including former Department of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar…CfA also runs a research initiative backed by Oracle called the Google Transparency Project, in which it explores Google’s influence on various governments and public policies.”

This cultural revolution on the left seems pointed directly…at itself.

But it makes sense for Google to start banging the drums about how other tech platforms are misbehaving. They are, after all, currently facing some pretty serious charges in a couple of lawsuits that made it all the way to the Supreme Court. And those lawsuits — in a less than shocking twist — also are related to terrorism.

In Gonzalez v. Google, Gonzalez’s survivors claim that the tech giant Google should compensate them for the loss of their loved one. In a separate suit, Twitter v. Taamneh, Alassaf’s relatives make similar claims against Google, Twitter, and Facebook.
The thrust of both lawsuits is that websites like Twitter, Facebook, or Google-owned YouTube are legally responsible for the two ISIS killings because ISIS was able to post recruitment videos and other content on these websites that were not immediately taken down. The plaintiffs in both suits rely on a federal law that allows “any national of the United States” who is injured by an act of international terrorism to sue anyone who “aids and abets, by knowingly providing substantial assistance” to anyone who commits “such an act of international terrorism.”

Is it too much to hope that the Big Tech companies, partisan though they are, continue this tradition of policing each other so the government regulatory regime has less of an interest in doing it for them? That’s not to suggest they’ll be ethical in their competitive regulatory regime, but the less government is involved in private enterprise, the better.