Google And Twitter Are Facing Lawsuits For Discriminating Against Conservatives

Social media is a blessing and a curse. So many businesses depend on it, and unfortunately, those platforms have the power to squash messages they don’t like.

We’ve seen it in action. Remember when Facebook decided to fight against “Fake News” by using left-wing “fact-checking” sites? It’s no secret Facebook has cracked down on conservative pages, but it’s not the only one. Google and Twitter are under fire for discriminating against conservatives.

Remember James Damore? He’s the former Google engineer who got in big trouble for writing an inside memo titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber.” He blasted Google’s “politically correct monoculture” and left-wing bias.

He was fired.

He just filed a class-action lawsuit against Google, claiming that it “discriminates against white men and conservatives.”

On top of that, conservative publisher Charles C. Johnson is suing Twitter for banning him.

Damore’s suit came on the same day that conservative publisher Charles C. Johnson sued Twitter for banning him from the platform in 2015. The cases are the latest signs of a broad effort by some conservatives to challenge technology companies on the grounds that they favor liberal or moderate voices, reflecting the prevailing political sensibilities in Silicon Valley. The technology industry’s crackdown against users accused of “hate speech” after August’s “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville has fueled allegations of political bias against companies that are playing a crucial role is disseminating speech worldwide.

The suit by Damore, filed in Santa Clara, Calif., alleges discrimination by Google against men, people of the “Caucasian race,” and people with perceived conservative political views. The suit says that Google employees who expressed views deviating from the majority at Google on politics or on employment practices, including “diversity hiring policies, bias sensitivity, and social justice,” were “singled out, mistreated, and systematically punished and terminated from Google,” in violation of their legal rights.

Systematically punished for thinking differently. Wow. That’s awful. It’s even MORE horrifying when you think about how much information Google controls.

Google spokesman, Ty Sheppard, said in response to the lawsuit: “We look forward to defending against Mr. Damore’s lawsuit in court.”

At a news conference, Damore’s lawyer, Harmeet Dhillon, said her client had attended various company meetings and discussions dedicated to diversity. At one such event on campus, Damore had questioned human resources staff about whether political bias was included in the company’s diversity hiring goals, and was told it wasn’t. He was asked to contribute feedback after the event, which led him to write his memo. Before the memo went public, he said he had received feedback from nearly 200 different Google employees, including human resources staff, over the course of several weeks. That gave Damore the impression that he was having an open discussion with colleagues, and he did not realize he was in trouble until 48 hours before he was let go.

Damore’s legal complaint filled over 200 pages and included screenshots of emails and other correspondence between Damore and Google employees, and anonymous complaints from current Google employees who hold conservative viewpoints. One screenshot showed an email from a Google engineer who wrote Damore, “You’re a misogynist and a terrible human. I will keep hounding you until one of us is fired.”

Well isn’t that just peachy.

And then there’s Johnson’s lawsuit against Twitter.

Later on Monday, Johnson sued Twitter for allegedly violating his right to free speech by permanently suspending his account after a tweet in which he sought to raise money for “taking out” a Black Lives Matter activist.

Johnson filed the suit in state superior court in San Francisco, where Twitter is headquartered. He has long maintained that he was seeking not violence but an investigation that might damage the public standing of the activist, DeRay McKesson. Johnson asserted in the suit that Twitter’s real motivation in banning him was to quash conservative voices online and that the company failed to follow its own “vague and subjective rules” for suspending user accounts.

The suit calls Twitter “the modern public square,” and says, “Like the company towns of old, it is a privately-owned public square. And therein lies the danger.”

Twitter declined to comment on the suit Monday. Like many other technology companies, it has long portrayed itself as a bastion of free speech and said it has acted to block users only after they violate the company’s terms of service, including bans on hateful speech or speech intended to incite violence against people or groups.

Wild.

I’ll be interested to see what comes of these lawsuits.

h/t Washington Post