Big tech's endless attacks on the First Amendment

For years, conservatives have suspected that Big Tech has worked to silence their viewpoints and ensure that liberal ideology is dominant across the Internet. On Twitter, prominent conservatives have been censored, either where topics that are generating enormous interest on the platform are prevented from reaching widespread audiences or where accounts are suspended altogether for no apparent reason.

When Elon Musk purchased Twitter two months ago, he promised to expose the effort to silence conservatives. Well, over the past two weeks, he has released internal company documents to show how woke employees at Twitter, prior to his time as CEO, turned the social media platform into a tool to advance their radical agenda, suppress free speech, and boost Washington Democrats in elections.

Musk's bombshell reports confirmed, among many things, that high-ranking Liberal employees at the influential social media company invented wild excuses to try and justify censoring and suppressing the New York Post's fact-based article about Hunter Biden's shady business dealings that was published a few weeks before the 2020 elections. The company went as far as suspending the Twitter account of President Donald Trump's press secretary -- taking away a vital tool that the administration's top spokesperson relied on to communicate with millions of Americans.

He also provided evidence that the company didn't just censor conservatives but also individuals with views that go against the values and political agenda of the Left. That includes Stanford School of Medicine Professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who Twitter secretly placed on a "trends blacklist" -- a form of censuring -- for correctly arguing that COVID lockdowns were harmful for children.

While Musk's reports confirmed what many Americans already knew -- that social media companies are biased against conservatives -- it's an alarming example of how woke employees have found a new and highly concerning way to force their views on the rest of America: pushing the companies they work for to join the fight to advance their liberal agenda.

The revelations and subsequent fallout of evidence of bias Musk has uncovered at Twitter is hardly unique. YouTube, Google, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and others all share a similarly disappointing record when it comes to maintaining a platform for free and open speech. Similar to Twitter, Facebook admitted that its moderators limited the sharing of the Hunter Biden New York Post story across its platform. Throughout the entire COVID-19 pandemic, stories or posts questioning the draconian COVID policies of government, lockdowns, or treatments were routinely suppressed, removed, blocked or saw the author's account blocked until the post was removed. And then there's Google Mail, which sent 70% of Republican campaign emails straight to spam in the 2020 elections, compared to just 10% of Democrat campaign emails.

These are just a few examples of how Big Tech is silencing free speech, influencing elections, and helping the Left advance its agenda. Fortunately, the new Republican House Majority will fight tooth and nail to rein in Big Tech and stop these endless attacks on Americans' First Amendment rights.

Jason Smith (R-MO) represents the eighth congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives.