Clay Takes Fight Against Censorship, Cancel Culture To Washington
To read Clay's full written testimony, click HERE.
The fight against Big Tech censorship and cancel culture is ongoing. This isn't a problem that's going to resolve itself, and if we don't push back against it, it could be the downfall of American society as we know it.
One person who's always willing to fight that battle is OutKick founder Clay Travis.
This time, Clay took that fight to Washington on Friday morning. He was invited to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill, and he gladly accepted. As always, Clay came prepared.
In his written statement, he shared OutKick's experience with Big Tech and how Facebook tanked the site's traffic following an interview with then President Donald Trump. In fact, Facebook censored every instance of positive Trump coverage published at OutKick.
As you can probably guess, Clay didn't hold back in calling Facebook out for its dictatorial censorship.
"If we wrote too often and too favorably about the president, Facebook punished our site," Clay told the House Judiciary Committee in a written statement. "If we didn't mention Trump very much, our site traffic grew. The power of Facebook was clear and their message was too: if you post content we don't like, your audience will vanish.
"This was a chilling lesson. And a scary one too."
Websites like OutKick generate revenue by the number of impressions their content receives, so this is a major issue for us. This decision by Facebook -- and other social networks -- to censor things they don't like affects the livelihood of many online businesses, including OutKick.
"We, a media company in 2020, had to a make a decision about whether to censor our writers' thoughts and observations for fear we would lose much of our ability to be heard and to monetize our content," Clay continued. "This is an abuse of power by Facebook, a sign that their unrestrained and virtually unchecked power to control what Americans see on the internet is nearly all encompassing."
Media companies like OutKick are not the only victims of Big Tech overreach though. Perhaps even more importantly, Big Tech censorship affects everyday people. Big Tech has been determining the content and the ideas that YOU can and cannot see. They're determining which information will or won't be available to YOU. Folks, that's a problem.
Clay wasn't willing to let Facebook pass the buck either.
"While Facebook would likely blame their algorithms for this traffic collapse at OutKick, that's a red herring," Clay said. "Algorithms are designed by humans, and the results are monitored. Facebook can make any site soar in popularity or crush their traffic, and they can do it in an instant."
And though he focuses primarily on Facebook's censorship of OutKick, Clay points out that other social media platforms such as Twitter are just as guilty of censoring opinions they don't like.
Nor is OutKick the only online outlet being censored. Plenty of other places and people are falling victim to Big Tech censorship as well. Clay is willing to fight for these people and these businesses, even if Big Tech decides to retaliate against him or OutKick as a result.
"Before I agreed to speak today, there was an internal debate inside OutKick," Clay shared. "Should we or should we not speak the truth today, knowing that in so doing, there was a very real chance these tech monopolies might take aim at us and attempt to cancel our business?
"As the owner of the company, it was ultimately my choice, and I decided to say what many media companies in the country are too afraid to say: it's time for Big Tech to be held accountable for their censorious and anti-First Amendment practices."
It's certainly a fight worth having.
To summarize points from his written statement and make a few more on the issues at hand, Clay spoke at length to the committee as well. Here's a five-minute clip of his opening statement. It's certainly worth your time.
And here are a few clips some Clay answering a few questions.
Follow Clint Lamb on Twitter @ClintRLamb.
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