The Media Research Center (MRC)’s Censortrack database, which tracks online censorship, has surpassed 6,000 cases. Examples include over 700 cases of criticism of incumbent President Joe Biden, as well as a variety of posts on political debates such as transgenderism and the coronavirus response.
Cases of censorship range across platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, Google, and YouTube.
In one recent example, an Instagram video from the Atlas Society, a libertarian nonprofit, was censored as “false information” for criticizing the Biden administration’s border policies. In another case, Instagram fact-checkers censored a comedian and political commentator for a post linking Biden policies to soaring inflation.
Microsoft-owned platforms did not escape scrutiny. The tech giant is a major force behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT, as well as a former partner of the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) and of NewsGuard, two organizations that curate blacklists of media organizations. As documented by Censortrack, the tech company also engages in censorship, with Microsoft-owned LinkedIn banning Gregory Wrightstone, a geologist, for posting data undermining the official narrative on climate change.
