Silicon Valley Dem Sides With Freedom, Slams Big Tech Censorship
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., chastised large tech fact-checkers for exploiting their political predisposition and blocking conservative information in order to safeguard and secure Biden's elections. Essentially, they are putting their hand on the scale and interfering with elections.
Following the disclosure of his private correspondence with Vijaya Gadde, who was then in charge of legal policy, in the Twitter files, Khanna was questioned by tech journalist Kara Swisher and business professor Scott Galloway for their "Pivot" podcast to discuss his concerns about "violation of the First Amendment principles."
Swisher's contention that Twitter censors had reason to be concerned about foreign misinformation potentially being shared by American publications was rejected by Khanna.
"I guess I’m not sure that should be their responsibility," he said. "I don’t think that they need to be fact-checking the New York Times and the Washington Post-the New York Post, and all the media publications about whether the media is being played, I think that that’s a sufficient amount of vetting."
To Swisher, Khanna justified his support for free speech by saying that it is "the current public square." He said that although Twitter was right to take down a picture of Hunter Biden in a bikini, it went too far by suppressing a New York Post article on the Bidens' international business dealings.
"But to take down the New York Post story? I mean look the New York Post is no friend of mine," he said. "I would never think of saying ‘let’s block the New York Post.’"
He said Twitter went too far when it took down accounts that shared the New York Post story and how it was "not a good look for Silicon Valley."
The California Democrat, who represents Silicon Valley, noted when he reached out to Twitter, he did so privately, because he believed the company was making a mistake.
After the Twitter Files revealed Khanna reached out to Twitter with concerns about censorship, he was surprised by the support and praise he received from conservatives for his stance.
"I was surprised at how many conservatives who have criticized me in the past liked my stance on this," he said. "It made me think that it’s not about Hunter Biden… What’s going on in this country is that there’s too many times where we try to silence people that we disagree with, we try to condemn people we disagree with, we try to act as if we’re morally superior to people we disagree with, and I think some people were just like ‘thank you for believing that you can have honest disagreements in this country and that someone doesn’t have to be morally inferior if you disagree with them.’"
The show of support from across the aisle, made Khanna optimistic that the country can move past the culture wars.
"I think to the extent that we can have more of that spirit in this country we can have some chance of getting past the culture wars which have really polarized the nation," he said.
I don't care if Khanna is pandering or if he's genuine. The point is he's not denying it like the rest of his goon buddies.