In an interview with Chris Salcedo on The Salcedo Storm Podcast, Parler CEO George Farmer slammed traditional social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for censoring free speech.
A conservative social media company, Parler faced opposition from Big Tech in 2021 when Amazon, Apple, and Google teamed up to remove it from their app stores after also banning several conservative users, including former President Donald Trump. Farmer criticized these social media companies for censoring differing opinions and urged people to turn away from traditional platforms.
“All of these areas have been … hotly debated, and yet social media and legacy media has come down incredibly hard on all of them and shut people up because they don’t like those opinions,” said Farmer. “This is going to happen again, and this is why we all need to leave legacy media; we all need to leave traditional social media.”
Farmer then called out the Biden administration for what he believes was a politically motivated FBI raid on Trump’s Florida home.
“It’s reminiscent of Eastern Europe under the Soviets,” said Farmer. “This is a terrifying time we’re living in right now, where the secret police effectively feel it’s totally within their judicial rights to clamp down on political figures they don’t like. And obviously, what’s come out in the aftermath, of course, is that this raid was politically motivated,” said Farmer.
It’s a very frightening time to be in politics in America, but also to be a person who dissents from the consensus view of the White House right now.
Farmer also highlighted the detrimental effects of Section 230, a federal law protecting social media companies from legal responsibility for content posted to their websites. He explained how the legislation allows Big Tech to censure differing opinions without consequence.
“What this has now led to is … exploitation. And this has now been the doctrine behind which the social media companies have stood and said, ‘Well, you can’t prosecute us because we’re defended by Section 230,” said Farmer. “What this really means is that if you can verify that social media has enforced subjective decision-making on its content, it is actually no longer shielded by platform status.”
Farmer called on lawmakers to hold social media companies accountable for censorship using Section 230 before they successfully lobby to alter legislation in their favor.
“This is why Congress needs to take this up, and I’m very hopeful that under a Republican Congress come November, we’re going to see more and more of this enforced,” said Farmer.
“What’s very, very dangerous … is the way that Big Tech is now trying to get into the lobby and to try and craft the legislation that will police itself. Big Tech now has more lobbyists than healthcare. It has the most lobbyists, I believe, out of any industry. … This is very dangerous. They’re trying to craft the legislation that is going to be used to police themselves.”
