When Big Tech Causes the Truth to Stumble

God’s grievance against the nation in Isaiah 59 was their rejection of truth. A culture of lies had been fostered, resulting in oppression and injustice. Truth had stumbled in the public squares, preventing righteousness from entering and provoking God to judge the nation (Isa. 59:14). What does it look like when truth stumbles in a nation’s public squares?

We can answer this question by simply looking around us. Truth is under assault in America—particularly in the digital mediums we rely upon for the delivery of information. Last year, Big Tech companies attracted a modicum of attention when they used broad and ambiguous policies to de-platform syndicated radio host Alex Jones for “glorifying violence” and “using dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims, and immigrants.”^[1] Following this, YouTube suspended political commentator Stephen Crowder’s ability to monetize his channel with 4 million subscribers because of a pattern of “egregious actions” that had “harmed the broader community” and violated the vague YouTube Partner Program policies.^[2][3] Specifically, Crowder had made disrespectful references to Vox video producer Carlos Maza’s sexuality, but he did not violate any specific policy, according to an in-depth review by YouTube.^[4]

Censorship by Big Tech companies in 2019 included eliminating 93% of traffic to top conservative news outlets,^[5] removing the term “Christian” from auto-fill search functions, blocking posts that linked to the pro-life organization Live Action,^[6] incorrectly placing Live Action on its porn domain block list before banning it entirely,[7] adjusting algorithms to suppress videos that do not violate any specific policy but whose content the company considers to be “borderline” because it doesn’t match their politics or worldview,^[8] and shadow banning—a practice of banning someone who doesn’t know they’ve been banned because they keep posting, but nobody is shown their content.^[9]

This trend has only accelerated in 2020 under cover of the coronavirus pandemic. The Atlantic reports, “Covid-19 has emboldened American tech platforms … Today, the platforms are proudly collaborating with one another, and following government guidance, to censor harmful information related to the coronavirus.”^[10] However, what the government and Big Tech deems harmful is often questionable.

Facebook has removed events in places like Nebraska, New Jersey, California, and Michigan that were promoting citizen protests against state-mandated stay-at-home orders.^[11] Furthermore, Facebook spokesman Andy Stone has warned, “Events that defy government’s guidance on social distancing aren’t allowed on Facebook.”^[12] This, despite protestors receiving support from the president^[13][14] and the Attorney General who has reminded the nation’s 93 U.S. attorneys, “We do not want to unduly interfere with the important efforts of state and local officials to protect the public, but the Constitution is not suspended in times of crisis.”^[15]

On the matter of using hydroxychloroquine as a possible treatment for COVID-19, Big Tech companies opted to honor the concerns of one politicized viewpoint and ignore the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency-use authorization for treating the novel coronavirus with hydroxychloroquine.^[16] A survey of 6,227 doctors in 30 countries by Sermo, a global health care polling company, found that 37% of physicians treating COVID-19 patients rated hydroxychloroquine as the “most effective therapy,”^[17] and a questionable,^[18] non-peer reviewed, French study found the drug to be 91% effective in treating 1,061 patients.^[19] Because of consistently positive reports from around the world, the drug is undergoing several large-scale clinical trials,^[20][21][22] and it has been repeatedly touted as a promising treatment option in the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefings.^[23] Nevertheless, YouTube censored posts by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for saying, “There is no coronavirus vaccination or highly effective medicine, but I still think hydroxychloroquine is quite effective. It will make the virus disappear quickly.”^[24]

Similarly, a video viewed 5.4 million times of doctors Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi discussing COVID-19 statistics and questioning whether the data merits shelter-in-place orders was removed by YouTube because it violated community guidelines. Fox News host Tucker Carlson comments, “The only justification for taking it down was that the two physicians on screen had reached different conclusions from the people currently in charge.”^[25][26] Specifically, the video failed to conform to the government’s recommended guidance on social distancing.^[27]

Big Tech companies have become unquestioning mouthpieces for government. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has classified political dissent from government stay-at-home orders as “harmful misinformation,”^[28] while YouTube has expressly stated that it will remove any content that disagrees with the World Health Organization (WHO) and social distancing guidelines issued by the government. A YouTube spokesperson told the BBC, “Any content that disputes the existence or transmission of Covid-19, as described by the WHO and local health authorities is in violation of YouTube policies.”^[29] Likewise, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki brazenly admitted to CNN’s Brian Stelter, “We also talk about removing information that is problematic, you know. Of course, anything that is medically unsubstantiated. So people saying, like, take vitamin C, you know, take turmeric, like, those are — will cure you. Those are the examples of things that would be a violation of our policy. Anything that would go against World Health Organization recommendations would be a violation of our policy. And so remove is another really important part of our policy.”^[30]

This is particularly troubling since the World Health Organization has come under fire for misrepresenting the threat of COVID-19 and championing blatant Chinese propaganda.^[31] Tucker Carlson reminds us, “Like everyone else involved in global pandemic policy, the WHO has often been wrong in its recommendations. A lot of people have. In mid-January WHO told us the coronavirus could not spread from person-to-person. In March they told us that facemasks didn’t work. Those were lies, and they were welcome on Google’s platforms. Doctors who are actually treating patients with the virus, meanwhile, have just been banned.”^[32]

Increasingly, Big Tech and government are collaborating to set acceptable boundaries for communicating in America. In doing so they are restricting truth to only those things that match their worldview. Last year the justification was protecting people from fake news and hate speech. This year the justification is protecting people from bad science. Whatever the excuse, the simple reality is that we are permitting ourselves to be censored. As such, we are rapidly losing our ability to openly communicate with one another in order to discern truth from error.

Already, truth is stumbling in America’s public squares. Not surprisingly, we have been experiencing an increase in oppression and injustice. It seems our nation is following a similar trajectory as that described in Isaiah 59. If we are not careful and refuse to correct our course, we may also experience the judgment of God described in Isaiah. Now, more than ever, it is imperative that God’s people speak the truth in every conversation while at least some truth remains uncensored.