Undo cultural pressure intensifies on tech platforms Spotify, Airbnb and GoFundMe | News
Big tech platforms such as Spotify, Airbnb and GoFundMe have stepped up bans and censorship of users and organizations due to the intense pressure placed on them by cancel culture, the conservatives say.
Spotify recently came under fire for secretly removing more than 100 episodes of Joe Rogan’s podcast, while Airbnb last week banned author and conservative activist Michelle Malkin for speaking at a white nationalist conference. GoFundMe is currently facing backlash over its decision to block contributions to the Freedom Convoy – from Canadian truckers protesting the country’s coronavirus restrictions.
The companies, long seen as neutral platforms and marketplaces for their respective products and services, are increasingly behaving like left-wing activist organizations due to public criticism leveled at them by some users and influencers of the social media, according to the conservatives.
“Basically, they don’t want to be canceled themselves. Airbnb and GoFundMe are middlemen, marketplaces that depend on user popularity,” said Sam Abrams, cancellation culture expert at the American Enterprise Institute. , a right-wing think tank.
“So they’re really petrified by the loss of revenue that could come from user anger, which has caused them to go political and not stay neutral anymore,” said Abrams, who is also a political science professor at the Sarah Lawrence. College, a liberal arts college.
Abrams said “hardly anyone” reads the terms of service companies cite in their user bans, and the average customer doesn’t expect their political leanings to affect their ability to use the platform.
Still, banning users because of their political preferences and views is likely to happen more frequently on major tech platforms that are under pressure to cater to liberal cancel culture warriors, Abrams said.
Over the past year, many companies and brands have changed their names, logos or product lines to be more cultural sensitivityand a number of employees have been reprimanded or fired over past social media content.
RUMBLE OFFERS $100 MILLION TO ROGAN TO LEAVE SPOTIFY AND JOIN WITHOUT CENSORSHIP
Spotify, for example, has been criticized for secretly deletion over 113 episodes of popular comedian Joe Rogan’s podcast while claiming to defend his right to free speech.
Rogan, who is white, apologized last week for previously using the N-word, which likely led Spotify to delete its previous episodes. Spotify has given no official explanation for the removal of the episodes.
“There are no words I can say to adequately express how deeply sorry I am for the way The Joe Rogan Experience the controversy continues to impact all of you,” Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said. written in a business note obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
At an internal company town hall last week, Ek told employees that the company is committed to “consistently enforcing our policies even to the loudest and most popular voices on the platform,” suggesting that Rogan episodes could be removed if they violate Spotify’s content guidelines.
Nevertheless, Ek also added that he doesn’t believe “silence Joe is the answer”.
In late January, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy urged tech platforms to censor Rogan and “use the power we have to limit the spread of misinformation” when asked about the presence by Rogan on Spotify.
Spotify said last week it would add content advisories to all Joe Rogan podcast episodes that deal with the coronavirus in response to intense criticism of Rogan harboring scientists who some government officials and liberal musicians say spread dangerous misinformation about the virus and the vaccine.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in early February that she supported Murthy’s advice regarding content moderation and misinformation.
“Our hope is that all major tech platforms — and all major news sources, for that matter — are responsible and vigilant,” Psaki said.
Conservatives say Big Tech platforms and the federal government are increasingly working in tandem with police talk they deem dangerous.
“Sometimes it looks like China, because the government pressures corporations against free speech, when you look at the comments from Psaki and Vivek Murthy,” said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog that tracks censorship. on Big Tech platforms.
“Even though we don’t put people in camps like China, the government is pushing to end some protests and restrict some speech,” Gainor added.
Meanwhile, fundraising platform GoFundMe is facing backlash over its decision to block $9 million in donations to truckers protesting the Canadian government.
GoFundMe said it decided to repress over funding given to truckers because the protests had turned violent and, therefore, violated the platform’s terms of service.
“We now have evidence from law enforcement that the previously peaceful protest has turned into an occupation, with police reports of violence and other illegal activity,” GoFundMe said in a statement.
Another fundraising platform, GiveSendGo, said it would step in instead and accept donations for truckers.
Home rental giant Airbnb has also sparked controversy for blacklisting conservative activist Michelle Malkin for attending the white nationalist organization American Renaissance’s annual conference in Nashville last November.
Malkin said last week that she and her husband were banned by Airbnb because she attended the conference and expressed her political views regarding anti-white programs and alleged censorship of nationalist dissidents.
Airbnb says it bans all users who are members of or actively affiliated with hate groups.
“Due to your promotion and attendance at a known white nationalist and white supremacist conference, we have decided to remove your account from Airbnb. This is consistent with the steps we have taken to ban individuals associated with this conference from over the past few years.” the company said in an email to Malkin that it shared a screenshot.
Airbnb deleted users who were also connected to white supremacist organizations and gatherings from his platform in 2017 and 2019.
Abrams, of the American Enterprise Institute, said while the cancel culture is prevalent and worsening on major online platforms, there is also a growing backlash against it.
He quoted new data US national election studies revealing that a significant number of people think the cancel culture has gone too far.
He added that explicitly uncancelled cultural platforms created by conservatives and others, such as YouTube alternative Rumble, are gaining momentum and will continue to emerge.
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“People need to wake up. When you share your views, post photos or donate money on a platform, you need to realize that most of them are not purely neutral. But all major platforms have new competitors emerging,” Abrams said. .
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