The right is now trying to do to the internet what they successfully did to traditional news media.
They spent decades propagating the false "liberal media bias" meme to get preferential treatment in news coverage, both in print and on television. They essentially worked the refs, playing on journalists' worst fears by accusing them of the one thing they were taught to avoid like the plague: personal bias creeping into their coverage.
And, it worked. More and more, journalists and news organizations tried to inoculate themselves against accusations of bias by giving equal (and sometimes more than equal) time and weight to mainstream ideas and candidates on the center-left and increasingly radical, fringe elements on the far right. For every Democrat who made a reasonable, verifiable statement ("climate change is real" ) there had to be a far-right conservative counterpoint ("global warming is a hoax" ). Democratic candidates' minor shortcomings and made-up "scandals" were magnified to look equally troublesome as the obvious (and sometimes staggering) venality and corruption of their Republican counterparts. (See: All of 2016.) Ultimately, the media began to treat every issue as ideological ping pong, a game in which both sides were equally guilty in the battle of spin. Facts themselves were up for debate, just as the right wanted.
Now, the right has taken their battle against objective truth online. If anyone doubts for a second that Trump's latest tweet attacking Google isn't part of a larger strategy, he or she underestimates what we are up against. They will cry bias, they will cry censorship. They will call themselves the victims of anti-conservative prejudice among tech sector elites who just won't give their ideas a fair shake. The right's goal is to put the overseers of these platforms on their heels, so that they will try to get back in conservatives’ good graces by creating an artificial "balance" between truth and right wing lies. That is how the right is able pollute the well of information with their toxic, counterfactual worldview.
To some extent, it is already working. There are actual neo-Nazis who are verified on Twitter, giving them a special status that elevates them above regular users. They are then able to spread their ideological disease with relative impunity while those who attack back are often placed on a timeout (a/k/a "Twitter jail" ). Facebook removed Alex Jones from their platform for spreading harmful conspiracy theories including the absolutely disgusting "Sandy Hook hoax" lie. With the help of the right-wing echo chamber, he adopted the familiar mantle of conservative martyr, splashing "CENSORED" across his logo. As a result, Twitter refused to follow Facebook's lead, claiming that Jones had not technically violated their Terms of Use, even after evidence of clear violations was presented to them.
Now, I suppose their next target is search engines. I'm sure that they will not stop until real news sources like the New York Times and Washington Post are treated as equal in relevance to right wing propaganda outlets like Fox News, Infowars and Breitbart.
We must must must not allow this to happen. It is clear that we have a lot of work to do battling disinformation from Russia and the right. However, one step we must take is to stop this assault on the digital information ecosphere in its tracks by protesting vocally when companies like Twitter bend to the right's manipulations and by coming out to support other companies when they do the right thing. And, as counterintuitive as it might seem, we must embrace bias and push back on allegations of "intolerance". Bias in favor of the facts is good. Intolerance of right-wing lies and distortions is also good.
Not all viewpoints are equal -- and we must not be afraid to say so.
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