“Hillary Clinton Email” and big-tech’s misguided desire to protect us from ourselves

Below is the transcript of the video.

Today, we will not be discussing the conspiracy theory that big tech is attempting to protect us from “fake news” by censoring stories, channels, topics, and individuals. We’re not discussing this conspiracy theory because it’s no longer a theory. It’s demonstrable through testing and most big tech firms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google readily admit they are removing anything they deem to be inappropriate.

This has all been brewing for years but spit hit the pan when the unthinkable happened. Donald Trump won the 2016 election, causing most of these big tech companies to privately vow, never again. They blame themselves for allowing the people to be misled and vowed to themselves that they will do what they can going forward to make sure the unacceptable elements of society will no longer use their platforms to spread disinformation and lies.

The latest identified iteration of this blatant form of intellectual censorship was discovered on Reddit when a user tried to get Google to recommend the phrase “Hillary Clinton Email” without success. So, let’s try it for ourselves.

[Test confirmed]

For those who don’t know, the recommendation engine used by Google and pretty much every search engine and social media site is designed to offer recommendations to your queries based on what you start typing. We all use it and take it for granted. The algorithm that delivers the recommended results is based on the combined data from search attempts combined with your own search history. We did it in incognito mode so my own search history wouldn’t come into play.

It’s ignorant to believe that so few people are searching for the phrase “Hillary Clinton Email” that it didn’t trigger the algorithm to recommend it when we first started typing her name, let alone when we types E-m-a-i and l. So yes, this is indisputable proof that a topic Google doesn’t want anyone to investigate, namely Hillary’s email scandal, has been wiped from their recommendation engine.

This isn’t news to most of you. We’ve been aware of such activities for a long time. What I’d like to discuss is why this happens in the first place. Is it a form of intellectual censorship? Absolutely. What are they censoring? They’re trying to purge anything within the collective conscience that goes against the various narratives they want the people to believe in. One of those narratives is that Hillary Clinton and the American people were robbed, which is the only acceptable explanation for why Donald Trump is President in their eyes.

Frankly, this is minor. I’m less concerned about this one than some of the other narratives they’re pushing, such as globalism, open borders, anti-Judeo-Christian beliefs, and the various “settled sciences” that they feel no longer warrant debate such as climate change or evolution. This systematic censorship subverts much needed discourse and relegates many of the lucid voices in our society to the same categories where they place the despicable.

There are certain things that must be censored for the sake of the harm they do. I am not one who believes in absolute freedom of speech to include child pornography or how to turn household items into mustard gas, but that’s a far cry from the other things they’ve chosen to censor, such as Hillary Clinton’s email scandal.

They are trying to protect us from ourselves because in their own minds, they know better. They’ve seen what can happen when people start pushing Pizzagate or Fizzledrip. They’re worried that flatearthers are going to corrupt our nation’s children with fears they’ll run into the Antarctic ice wall no matter which direction they travel. They think if we’re looking into Hillary Clinton, they shouldn’t recommend her email as a topic of research because, in their minds, there’s nothing to see here.

We don’t need to be protected. The internet is loaded with false notions and it’s up to the people to decide what they want to believe and what they want to dismiss. Big tech shouldn’t impose their own superior sensibilities on us just because they think most people are sheep. That may be true, but so what? Let us be sheep. We’re okay with it.

But here’s the thing, and it’s what I fear even more than big tech’s censorship. As private companies, Washington DC should NOT be attempting to tell them how to operate their businesses. The people can choose to use whatever platform we want to use to communicate, search, and socialize. I’d rather work as a people to expose the blatant intellectual censorship these companies are perpetrating rather than calling on government to make them stop. It may be the easy way out and I can imagine many on both the right and the left cheering if DC started regulating these companies as publishers rather than platforms. But that would be a very short-term fix. If you think censorship is bad now, just wait until DC gets their hands on the mute button. Things will become exponentially worse.

Google might be easy. Facebook might be fun. Twitter might be loud. But the power they all share is theirs because we choose to give it to them. We don’t need DC regulating the censors. We simply need to exercise our individual right of choice.

I’m JD Rucker. Thank you for listening.