Growing tensions between Big Tech and the U.S. Congress has to be one of the biggest news stories in America right now, even as coronavirus statistics soar and shadowy activists keep setting fires at strategic locations in American life.
Think about it: How many Americans get their “news” about COVID-19 and the events swirling around #BlackLivesMatter through sources controlled by these czars of Big Tech — Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Apple’s Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos of Amazon and The Washington Post?
Democrats have their own reasons to be concerned about Big Tech, whose clout in the lives of modern Americans make the railroad tycoons of the Gilded Age look like minor-league players. These companies, after all, resemble digital public utilities more than mere Fortune 500 powerhouses.
Meanwhile, you know that — at some point — Republicans are going to roll out a long list of cases of viewpoint discrimination against cultural, moral, religious and — oh yeah — political conservatives. Here’s a bite of preview material from The Washington Post:
Some Republicans, meanwhile, plan to revive their assertions that major social media sites exhibit political bias. Party leaders have ratcheted up their attacks in recent weeks after Facebook and Twitter began taking action against President Trump for his incendiary posts. But GOP critics often have provided scant evidence of their bias allegations, which tech giants fiercely deny and Democrats have decried as a distraction.
“If a platform is dominant in the marketplace and is discriminating against a particular political point of view, [then] anti-competitive behavior coupled with bias is concerning,” said Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), a member of the antitrust panel.
As the old saying goes, it’s not bias — it’s just bad algorithms, over and over.
Now, if journalists were looking for a clickable story to illustrate this side of the Big Tech wars, perhaps a story involving a symbolic person in American life who drives big numbers in social media, why not cover a big tech conflict involving Tim Tebow?
This headline is, alas, from The Blaze, a perfect example of “conservative” niche media: “Twitter reportedly censors moving Bible message from Tim Tebow: ‘Sensitive content’.” Here is the top of that report:
Twitter reportedly censored one of former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow's Bible-centric videos for promoting "sensitive content."
The Western Journal obtained a screenshot of the reported censorship before the tech giant apparently removed it. The video — which innocuously featured Tebow imploring Christians to hold fast to their faith amid trying times — was censored with a banner that read, "The following media includes potentially sensitive content."
In the video, the outspoken Christian athlete stresses the importance of relying on God through difficult times. He says, "Bible believers, when we look at the Bible, and we see a lot of the heroes, a lot of times they truly were wounded deeply before they were ever used greatly. So maybe you're going through a time in your life where you feel like you've just been wounded greatly. It hasn't been your year, hasn't been your day — you just don't feel like this is your time."
It’s really amazing, methinks, that anyone at Twitter would claim to understand the language in this video, since Tebow words are drenched in Evangelical language and biblical imagery.
Maybe that was the problem? Someone — or some computer program written by someone — simply assumed that all of these images must be political?
Notice all of the sensitive and threatening language in this passage:
The famed athlete points out that God could very well be preparing those struggling through difficulties for greater disciplines.
"You never know what God is doing with your life," he adds. "You never know what he is preparing you for. So many times in the Bible, when we look at the heroes, there were times in their life where — if they stopped, if they quit, if they said, 'No, God, I've had enough' — then they would have missed out on the most impactful, most influential times of their life."
"Maybe that is the next step for you," he adds. "Maybe that is tomorrow. Maybe that is next week, maybe that is next year. But when we quit, we will never know what we missed out on. We will never know what's in store for us."
Now, the story — this is par for the course in advocacy media — uses the word “censor” in the headline, even though government leaders are not involved in this story at all.
Instead of “censors,” maybe it would have been appropriate to used the verb “cancels.”
An updated version of the Blaze report added a statement from Twitter that the tweet was “flagged as potentially sensitive material in error. It has been corrected.”
So here is my question: In light of the timing with the Big Tech showdown, why was this Tebow clash mere “conservative” news? I kept thinking that some mainstream publication would cover this.
Maybe these stories are just too common? They have become cliches?
Dang algorithms.