Worst of September: Five Shocking Examples of Big Tech Censorship

Big Tech censorship never takes a fall break, and September was no exception.

As the 2024 election system continues to heat up, Big Tech’s election-interfering censorship has not slackened, as MRC Free Speech America recorded this month. A particularly egregious example was Google’s election-interfering search result manipulation before the second GOP debate.

Meanwhile, Instagram imposed a climate alarmist fact-check on radio host Chris Plante, and YouTube censored The Daily Wire’s Candace Owens for questioning the societal benefits of homosexuality.

Furthermore, YouTube constituted itself judge, jury, and hangman by demonetizing comedian and actor Russell Brand almost immediately when as-yet unproven sexual assault allegations began circulating. And X’s Community Notes continue to operate as a new sort of censorship.

As the censorship industrial complex was exposed, Big Tech only doubled down on its anti-free speech actions. MRC Free Speech America is highlighting the worst censorship of September to call Big Tech to account for their anti-free speech actions.

1) MRC study exposed Google’s anti-Republican search bias. Google’s search engine once again failed to produce even-handed results despite multiple searches performed by MRC Free Speech America researchers over a week’s time leading up to the second GOP presidential debate on Sept. 27. The only Republican candidate who showed up on the first page of Google’s search results was Will Hurd, who did not have enough support to make it to the debate stage. Despite specifically searching “republican presidential campaign websites,” MRC researchers found only Hurd, who is polling at less than half a percentage point, and Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson on the first page of search results.

Former President Donald Trump (R), Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R), Strive Asset Management co-founder Vivek Ramaswamy (R), former Vice President Mike Pence (R), Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley (R),  and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) did not appear on Google’s first page of search results at all. This seemingly represents blatant election-interfering censorship just before the presidential debate. As MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider said, the results were “outrageous.”

2) Instagram “fact-checks” Chris Plante’s meme mocking electric vehicle (EV) dependence on coal-powered energy. Radio show host Chris Plante’s show account posted on Instagram, “Pretending to solve problems while making things worse is a Democrat specialty!” His post included a meme with a man hooking an electric car up to a charger. The text on the meme read, “Coal fired electric cars. Helping liberals pretend they’re solving a make believe crisis.” Instagram slapped a fact-check label upon the post claiming, “Partly False Information. The same information was reviewed by independent fact-checkers in another post.” Clicking on the label reveals the assertion, “Partly False. The same partly false information was reviewed in another post by fact-checkers. There may be small differences. Independent fact-checkers say this information has some factual inaccuracies. Fact-Checker: AFP United States. Conclusion: Partly False.”

The fact-check article to which it linked asserted in the summary, “Posts on social media suggest electric cars do not help lower climate-changing emissions because people rely on coal power to charge them. This is misleading; data shows that they still produce fewer emissions over their lifespan than gasoline-powered vehicles, even in regions where coal is burned to produce electricity for the grid.” The fact-check did not, however, disprove the fact of electricity coming from coal being the energy source for EVs, nor did it address the issue of EV batteries being extremely toxic to produce and dispose of.

3) YouTube deletes Candace Owens video critical of homosexual relationships’ negative impact on society. The Daily Wire host Candace Owens on her podcast read a comment from someone referring to Owens’s interview with political commentator Brandon Tatum. Tatum and Owens had discussed the societal effect of celebrating homosexuality. Owens explained her own position in response to the comment she read. “What I have actually said to you is that when I am in discussions with my gay friends it’s unbelievable to hear how often they talk about sex. It’s just the truth,” she stated. “And then we talked about the reality, which is that two men can have sex constantly, every single day and there are no barriers, no natural born barriers that are preventing that. A woman just having a baby, a woman menstruating, these things that prevent a relationship from being centered around sex, which are built into natural order, and gay men don’t have that.” 

Owens specifically contrasted LGBTQ “Pride” parades, where “people [are] walking in dog chains,” with a hypothetical heterosexual pride parade. “If I said let’s have a heterosexual pride parade, people would probably show up with their families and their kids. No one’s going to say let’s wear leather and whips and chains and get down on all fours and walk like dogs and call it pup play. You know that’s true,” she insisted. 

YouTube removed Owens’s video, however, claiming that she was “violating YouTube’s policy on hate speech.” In response to an inquiry from MRC Free Speech America, the platform claimed that, “We issued a strike to the Candace Owens Podcast channel for violating our hate speech policy, which prohibits content promoting hatred against protected individuals or groups, including the LGBTQ+ community.” Despite what pro-LGBTQ censors claim, however, LGBTQ/homosexual individuals report higher depression rates and detransitioners, or former transgenders, have repeatedly highlighted the severe physical damage that “gender reassignment” surgery can cause.

4) YouTube hypocritically demonetized Russell Brand. Almost as soon as allegations of sexual assault began surfacing in the media against Brand, YouTube demonetized him. YouTube’s decision to censor Brand seems hypocritical, however. The Google-owned video site continues to platform former CBS News journalist Charlie Rose and former Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) despite sexual harassment and assault allegations. As context, in contrast to Rose and Franken, Brand has become a vocal voice against Big Tech censorship, also speaking out on controversial topics such as COVID-19 vaccines and lockdowns, and the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

Media, a UK Parliamentarian, and multiple companies have demanded Brand’s censorship by other platforms, attempting to pressure Rumble into following YouTube’s example. Rumble refused, slamming the “cancel culture mob,” but YouTube has doubled down on its decision.

When CBS Mornings co-host Tony Dokoupil suggested that “there are some people in this world you would not love to have a bigger voice,” YouTube CEO Neal Mohan agreed that safety, not free speech, was “the North Star by which we govern all of our actions.” Mohan specifically defended his platform’s decision to demonetize Brand.

5) X’s Community Notes constitute censorship by another name. X’s (formerly Twitter’s) Community Notes can provide well-researched fact-checks and honest analysis of a post, and are applied to people across the political spectrum. For instance, CensorTrack.org records President Joe Biden receiving a Community Notes context label on his accounts more often than anyone else, as his false and/or deceptive statements frequently necessitate correction. It is key to note that X chooses who is allowed to write Community Notes and whether or not a post can receive a note, however. It is not quite the community-sourced effort that X likes to claim. Therefore, the notes constitute censorship from X, providing selective fact-checks from a group chosen by the platform itself. 

Community Notes claim that a post is “missing context,” but this is a subjective claim, and can result in mere critiques from a different political perspective rather than factual context. The “missing context” warning labels delegitimize a post, and sometimes for no more reason than a Community Notes fact-checker’s personal opinions. As contributing writer David Marcus put it in a piece for MRC Free Speech America, Community Notes is censorship by another name.

Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that government agencies and Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.