S2T: The State Of Censorship On Tech Platforms, Today

Keneci Channel

S2T Score (01/2022)

Big Tech: 1.05

Gab: 7.9

Gettr: 4.01

Parler: 5.1

Following the tightening of their censorship regime, big tech companies are facing harsh criticisms from free speech advocates who accuse Silicon Valley giants like Google, of emulating the totalitarians in the Chinese Communist Party.

Twitter recently banned the mRNA technology inventor Dr Robert Malone and conservative United States congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, MTG. The controversial moves drew swift criticisms online.

Days following the bans, popular podcaster Joe Rogan who interviewed Malone on his show Joe Rogan Experience, joined alternative social media network Gettr, and urged his Twitter followers to join him.

Tens of thousands also joined free speech social media network Gab which is arguably the most pro-free-speech among all the popular platforms.

Big Tech platforms like Google, Amazon. Twitter, Microsoft, PayPal and Mastercard are among the main culprits when it comes to censorship online. Some banks also routinely ban right-wing commentators and activists.

While 'woke' left-wing academics, media talking heads, politicians and online mobs call for even more censorship, the right generally oppose such authoritarian measures. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted last year, that Big Tech companies are biased in favor of left-wing politics.

On the right, there is an ongoing debate on the best way to tackle Big Tech censorship. While many call for government intervention, others like Gab CEO Andrew Torba believe the best way is to build alternative pro-free-speech platforms and decentralized systems where necessary.

However as alternative platforms become increasingly popular, even some of them have faced criticisms for different reasons.

Left-wing activist groups like the Anti-defamation League ADL, have accused platforms like Gab of hosting 'hate speech,' 'white nationalists' and 'Nazis.' Torba dismisses such allegations as smear campaigns against conservative companies that the left have no control over. He says he is merely concerned with preserving free speech "for all" online. Conservatives generally reject the idea of hate speech which they argue is subjective.

Gab has been banned by many online web service companies and banks. According to Torba, the company had to build most of their essential tools and infrastructure from the scratch.

As these alternative platforms grow in popularity, it has become important to know what is censored or allowed on social media platforms in general, and on which platform speech is least censored.

We are starting a special Keneci Channel  series: Speech Tolerance Tracker, S2T, tracking censorship on all popular social media platforms.

We will start with three smaller platforms -- Gab, Gettr and Parler; and Big Tech platforms -- which include Google, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. 

For our purpose in this case, we group them together as 'Big Tech' because they seem to coordinate their censorship actions. Most notorious example was when many Big Tech companies like Twitter banned former U.S. president, Donald Trump from their platforms.

The S2T Score rates the free speech tolerance level on each platform:

'0.00' indicates intolerant;

'10' indicates most tolerant.

Speech laws/practices in North Korea and United States of America are our reference points for obvious reasons.

Hence we consider so-called 'hate speech,' 'political speech,' pornographic content, 'doxing' and general-to-targeted  'threats of violence.'

While targeted threats of violence is against the law, certain general threats made figuratively or sarcastically are not censored on some platforms hence our use of the 'general-to-targeted' measure.

On all considered platforms, we monitor complaints of censorship and the response of the moderation teams versus their Terms of Service.

Check this page for updates...