This was in the July 8th Des Moines Register; but not yet posted to qResearch (per search)
Full cap with text also copied below. (Bold is me ht/Geddes)
Matt Whitake OpEd: Big Tech censorship is elites vs. you
With all of the attention surrounding election integrity, few pundits seem to notice or care that Silicon Valley tampers with our elections just as much as, if not more than, a hostile foreign government ever could.
Everyone from little-known Iowa songwriter Ryan Moore to the President of the United States himself is now subject to censorship by the Big Tech giants, who are abandoning the pretense of objectivity as they ramp up their crackdown on conservative content.
At this point, the reality of the censorship is not in serious dispute. As early as the beginning of 2019, there were rigorous quantitative analyses proving that Trump supporters are kept on a tight leash — apparently so tight that a low-profile songwriter like Moore can wind up in hot water simply for making a video while wearing a Make America Great Again hat. Meanwhile, leftists openly use every major social media platform to spread the most vile and violent messages with virtual impunity.
Their motivation is clear: The social media companies want to destroy the relatively open internet of 2015 and 2016 that enabled the MAGA movement to grow like wildfire and ensure that nothing like it ever happens again. The past four years have been one steadily turning ratchet of new rules and tools for censoring and silencing disfavored voices. Left-leaning journalists write hit pieces and bring pressure campaigns until their pro-Trump competitors are banned from the public sphere, then applaud Big Tech for “finally doing something.”
Social media today is almost unrecognizable from the environment that gave rise to the Trump movement. Many of the Facebook meme groups, snarky Twitter accounts, and right-wing YouTube channels that fueled the MAGA revolution are long gone. Those that remain, along with national commentators who rely on their social media accounts to make a living — as well as millions of ordinary citizens like Ryan Moore — know they walk on thin ice every time they post an opinion, no matter how innocuous they might think it is at the time.
As we speed through the final months before Election Day, Silicon Valley’s clear intention to sway the election to Joe Biden has become undeniable. Confident that they will face no consequences for their actions under a potential Biden administration, the tech giants have stopped hiding their desire to tilt this election in the Democrat’s favor.
Just last month, Twitter blocked tweets by the President of the United States — twice — for “glorifying violence,” simply because he insisted violent rioters and looters be met with the force of law and order. In addition, Amazon’s Twitch platform banned the official Trump Campaign channel for “hateful conduct,” Facebook banned official Trump Campaign ads, Google threatened to cut off the vital ad revenue of pro-Trump outlets The Federalist and Zerohedge, YouTube banned dozens of influential Trump-supporting accounts, and Reddit outright destroyed “r_thedonald,” the biggest pro-Trump discussion forum on the internet.
It’s difficult to view this as anything other than an effort on the part of Silicon Valley to help Joe Biden stumble his way into the White House. The fiction that these actions are somehow part of neutral “anti-hate” efforts has now been exposed by the censors themselves.
These are the same people who insisted that Russians buying Facebook ads was a grave threat to our democracy in 2016, yet they see nothing wrong with using Big Tech’s unprecedented power over public discourse to silence a huge swath of American public opinion. America was designed to foster a vibrant marketplace of ideas. Big Tech moderating that marketplace is unacceptable and dangerous. Our republic demands more and diverse voices not less.
That’s real election interference, and it is a grave threat to our democracy.
Matt Whitaker is a former Acting U.S. Attorney General and an Iowa native.
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/2020/07/08/big-tech-censorship-elites-vs-you/5391749002/