Economic challenges may be forcing Big Tech to soften some of its censorship of disfavored political views while censorship advocates complain that platforms are not “preparing” for the critical 2024 elections.
For years, conservatives and other dissenters from left-wing orthodoxy have criticized the world’s largest online information and communications platforms, including Google, Facebook, and (until late last year) Twitter, for using their vast influence to slant the news, sources, ideas, and arguments their users see and share through their services. One of their chief rationales for doing so was to prevent “misinformation” from influencing elections, which critics say is merely a pretext to sway elections in their favor.
Iconoclastic tech mogul Elon Musk purchased Twitter (since renamed X) in October 2022 and set to work making it more speech-friendly and politically neutral, but other tech giants such as Google-owned video platform YouTube continue to affirm their intentions to police content.
