Amy Goodman
@DemocracyNow·3.2M subscribers·19.4K videos
Is Big Tech Too Powerful? Chris Hedges & Ramesh Srinivasan Debate Twitter & Facebook Banning Trump
Posted
January 11, 2021
Views
86,503
Likes
2,558
Comments
805
Engagement
January 11, 2021
86,503
2,558
805
3.89%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
20:14Now PlayingTwitter, Facebook and other social media companies have removed President Trump from their platforms, after years of debate about the disinformation he shared to millions of followers from his accounts. While many are applauding the bans, author Chris Hedges warns they could backfire. “To allow these companies to essentially function as de facto platforms for censorship and manipulation … harkens back to the way civil liberties were eviscerated in the wake of 9/11,” says Hedges. “It’s always, in the end, the left that pays for this kind of censorship.” We also speak with UCLA professor Ramesh Srinivasan, director of the Digital Cultures Lab, who says Big Tech allowed right-wing extremism to flourish for years before acting and that lawmakers need to enact robust regulation. “All of these technology platforms, powered by their hidden algorithms that are indeed opaque, thrive on the amplification of polarization,” says Srinivasan. “It is incredible how much power we have given to a very small number of people who are essentially mediating pretty much every aspect of our lives.”
#DemocracyNow
Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on nearly 1,400 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream 89AM ET
Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! today
FOLLOW DEMOCRACY NOW! ONLINE:
Daily Email Digest
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
