The president of National Religious Broadcasters said he is convinced Facebook is policing free speech and it’s time for them to stop targeting conservatives.
“It’s not an accident – it’s on purpose,” Jerry Johnson said on the Todd Starnes Radio Show. “We don’t hear this about progressive groups or leftist groups.”
“They have been producing an echo chamber that is for liberal ideas, progressive ideas, and left-wing ideas,” he said.
Johnson was one of more than 60 prominent conservative leaders who issued a joint statement regarding censorship and suppression of conservative speech by Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube.
They are calling on the social media giants to provide equal footing for conservatives and to provide clarity on what the media companies consider “hate speech.”
“Social media companies must address these complaints if they wish to have any credibility with the conservative movement and its tens of millions of supporters,” the letter read.
“We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We have the First Amendment,” he said. “This is a principle that’s been tried and true for hundreds of years, Americans understand this.”
Johnson said the censorship isn’t an accident, referring to a ranking system of trusted news outlets that was substantially lacking idealogical diversity.
He said the average American Facebook user does not want to his/her newsfeed sorted based on political biases.
“That’s none of Facebook’s business,” he added. Johnson argued private companies should embrace the First Amendment and publicly note that they stand for a “public market place of ideas.”
“Unless they have a level playing field, we’re not going to give up,” he said.
Johnson also plugged internetfreedomwatch.org, which is dedicated to supporting free speech online.
“Chillingly, a growing censorship of Christian and politically conservative viewpoints on the internet is happening in America and across the globe,” the website reads.