{"id":1208182,"date":"2022-01-11T13:34:43","date_gmt":"2022-01-11T18:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1208182"},"modified":"2022-01-11T13:34:46","modified_gmt":"2022-01-11T18:34:46","slug":"former-gop-rep-will-hurd-yes-social-media-companies-should-censor-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/former-gop-rep-will-hurd-yes-social-media-companies-should-censor-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Former GOP Rep Will Hurd: Yes, Social Media Companies Should Censor Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fformer-gop-rep-will-hurd-yes-social-media-companies-should-censor-trump%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1208182&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Will-Hurd-Impeachment-Inquiry-Hearing-640x335-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">Former Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX) told the&nbsp;<em>Washington Post<\/em> during an online seminar that social media companies were right to suspend President Donald Trump, and that conservative complaints about censorship should not be taken seriously.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Post<\/em>, which pushed the false \u201cRussia collusion\u201d hoax for several years during the Trump presidency, hosted a seminar on the \u201cdisinformation crisis\u201d in American media Tuesday, sponsored by left-wing tycoon Pierre Omidyar.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>The discussion featured Hurd and British Conservative MP Damien Collins.<\/p>\n<p>Omidyar has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2021\/10\/22\/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-backed-by-leftist-billionaire-pierre-omidyar\/\">backed<\/a> efforts to urge the federal government to control online speech, and allegedly helped efforts to use private funding to help Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s effort turn out the vote in Democrat-heavy counties in key swing states like Georgia.<\/p>\n<p>Hurd, a former CIA officer, did note that many of the people \u201cpropagating\u201d disinformation online were those with \u201cblue check\u201d verified badges from Twitter, noting that some disinformation came from mainstream sources, not from the fringes.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>Asked whether he agreed with social media companies suspending former President Donald Trump, Hurd agreed, saying that the companies had terms of service, and he and others \u201chave been violating those terms, so yes, the companies should have the ability to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Asked whether he agreed with conservative complaints about social media censorship, Hurd said that certain conservative media companies \u201chave way more following than a lot of the mainstream media\u201d on Facebook, and therefore it could not be argued that conservative views were being censored on social media.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/facebook-politics-decision-making-documents-11635100195\">reported<\/a> last year that Breitbart News was succeeding on Facebook <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2021\/10\/24\/facebook-reduced-breitbart-traffic-twenty-percent\/\"><em>despite<\/em><\/a>&nbsp;efforts to suppress Breitbart\u2019s traffic on the network by 20 percent.<\/p>\n<p>Collins, founder of the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cigionline.org\/igc\/\">International Grand Committee on Disinformation<\/a>, which he said was partly inspired by a meeting in Washington with members of the Canadian parliament and the Atlantic Council think tank. He called new regulations on \u201cdisinformation\u201d a \u201cleveling-up process\u201d in which regulations gradually advanced across different countries.<\/p>\n<p>He said the coronavirus pandemic had demonstrated the danger of disinformation, given anti-vaccine propaganda and misinformation about alternative treatments. He cited \u201cdrinking bleach to cure COVID\u201d as an example of bad media advice, although that particular case is a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/health\/2021\/12\/01\/watch-jen-psaki-falsely-claims-trump-told-people-to-inject-bleach\/\">hoax<\/a> propagated by the mainstream media, which claimed falsely that then-President Trump had recommended it.<\/p>\n<p>The seminar also discussed the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2021\/10\/22\/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-backed-by-leftist-billionaire-pierre-omidyar\/\">testimony<\/a>&nbsp;last year of so-called Facebook \u201cwhistleblower\u201d Frances Haugen, who is also backed by Omidyar.<\/p>\n<p>Both Hurd and Collins said they agreed with some reforms to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields online platforms from the liability they would be exposed to if they were considered publishers, not platforms.<\/p>\n<p><em>Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of <\/em>Breitbart News Sunday<em> on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Neither-Free-nor-Fair-Presidential-ebook\/dp\/B08PNN54BB\">Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election<\/a>. His recent book, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.centerstreet.com\/titles\/joel-b-pollak\/red-november\/9781546099840\/\">RED NOVEMBER<\/a><em>, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at <a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/joelpollak\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\">@joelpollak<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX) told the\u00a0Washington Post during an online seminar that social media companies were right to suspend President Donald Trump, and that conservative complaints about censorship should &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1208182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1208182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1208182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1208182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1208182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}