Written by Justin Culetu
Twitter once again proved its dangerous unregulated powers last week by permanently banning Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe from their platform for releasing footage exposing CNN.
In a series of undercover footage released by O’Keefe, CNN’s technical director, Charles Chester, clearly states the network used propaganda tactics throughout the 2020 election with the goal of getting President Trump out of office, increasing its coverage on coronavirus to improve ratings, and its aims to help the Black Lives Matter movement. This prompted the Project Veritas founder to bring back his #ExposeCNN campaign on Twitter, which ultimately led to the removal of his Twitter account just a few days after the footage was released.
Twitter’s excuse for James O’Keefe’s removal was the alleged use of fake accounts. “As outlined in our policy on platform manipulation and spam, ‘You can’t mislead others on Twitter by operating fake accounts,’ and ‘you can’t artificially amplify or disrupt conversations through the use of multiple accounts,'” according to a Twitter spokesperson.
The allegations by Twitter were denied by O’Keefe, and he stated that he will sue the tech giant for defamation. Twitter has yet to respond to the potential lawsuit as well as the nature of the “fake accounts” O’Keefe was using.
A myriad of influencers in the political world took the platform by storm to continue the movement that O’Keefe and Project Veritas started. Donald Trump Jr. tweeted, “In case you haven’t figured out how it works by now… @CNN spreads propaganda to elect Democrats[.] And then @Twitter runs interference to protect CNN. They’re all on the same team.” Other big names include: Rep. Matt Gaetz, who has experienced a fair share of slander from CNN, Andy Ngo, and former CNN contributor Steve Cortes.
Project Veritas also exposed Twitter’s biases in the past. Following the ban of President Trump’s account in January, internal remarks by CEO Jack Dorsey stated that the Twitter crackdown would be much bigger than the Trump ban in the future. Twitter temporarily suspended Project Veritas’ account in February following the leaked video.
Due to the lack of restrictions on the industry, big tech platforms have become one of the most powerful institutions in the world. With over 80% of the American population using social media, companies like Twitter and Facebook have the ability to seize the fundamental right of speech from the people. With the silencing of conservative viewpoints that the media giants continue to implement, the democratic practices that this nation prides itself on will remain embarrassingly undermined.
