July 31, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — After less than 48 hours, LifeSite’s petition encouraging the break-up of Big Tech has gone viral, already attracting more than 47,000 signatures.
“Since Big Tech has now started to censor news and opinion, it’s clear that more competition — not monopoly — is needed on the internet,” said Gualberto Garcia Jones, LifeSite’s director of advocacy. “Big Tech needs to be broken up so that competition of ideas can flourish again in America.”
Big Tech’s policy, which entails the censorship of legitimate news and opinion, is seriously undermining free speech and democracy itself.
This petition, therefore, calls for the government to use existing antitrust laws to break up the Big Tech monopolies — including the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Google (owner of YouTube) — which have coalesced over the past two decades.
This petition is necessary because of the increasing severity and frequency of affront to free speech by Big Tech monopolies.
For example:
- Just this week, Big Tech conspired to “erase from the internet” the White Coat Summit — a meeting of licensed practicing doctors who reported on their experience using hydroxychloroquine to treat the coronavirus.
- Recently, at Facebook, two whistleblowers came forward to attest that the platform aggressively discriminates against conservatives on a global scale for the purpose of influencing election outcomes.
- Twitter has been the subject of numerous free speech controversies for years and alarmed critics just this March when it announced that it would be aggressively policing COVID-19 “misinformation,” including “denial of global or local health authority recommendations” with the “intent to influence people into acting against recommended guidance” and “call(s) to action such as ‘coronavirus is a fraud and not real — go out and patronize your local bar.’”
- In 2018, Google, YouTube, et al. succeeded in manipulating the Irish abortion referendum by blacklisting pro-life videos, manipulating pro-life search terms and results and intentionally withholding pro-life information.
“Of course, we believe that people are capable of sorting through opinion and news themselves. However, we cannot accept Big Tech stepping in to censor what opinion and news is available,” said Garcia Jones. “Regrettably, Big Tech must now be broken up if legitimate free speech is going to survive and continue to thrive on the internet.”
In an era where almost everything is polarized, a recent Pew poll reported remarkable unity on this question. Seventy-five percent of Americans believe that Big Tech companies have too much influence, and there is overwhelming support for breaking up the Big Tech monopolies.
President Trump took a step in the right direction in late May with his executive order to combat social media censorship through more regulation.
But much more can be done and needs to be done right now.
This petition calls on policymakers to be level-headed in this regard and use existing laws against monopolies to start the process of breaking up Big Tech.
People need to continue to speak up all around the world, so if you haven’t yet signed the petition, please consider signing and sharing with your like-minded family, friends and colleagues.
Please CLICK HERE to read and sign the petition. Thank you!