[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Investigations.]
By Christian Toto
Real Clear Investigations
It’s a situation so funny …
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Investigations.] By Christian Toto Real Clear Investigations It’s a situation so funny that a growing number of ostracized comics forgot to laugh: Conservative-leaning material, they say, is increasingly subject to arbitrary online censorship by Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media giants – treatment that appears to have no other explanation except the targets’ bucking of leftist orthodoxy. Openly conservative stand-up Nick Di Paolo got suspended from YouTube for supposedly sharing false information, after ridiculing the left’s exaggerations of the virus in attacking President Trump. Comedian Chrissie Mayr’s video mocking China’s handling of COVID-19 – “Kung Flu Fighting” – was erased by Instagram, which deemed it “hate speech” despite featuring a diverse lineup of comics. The Babylon Bee, the right’s online answer to the satirical site The Onion, has been at war with Facebook for years. The social media giant intermittently threatens to de-platform the site for spoof articles that moderators apparently take seriously, such as its 2018 report that CNN had purchased industrial-sized washing machines to better “spin” the news. Sarah Silverman, for example, suffered no official blowback for this Feb.11,2019, tweet in response to one by President Trump: Kathy Griffin lost her CNN New Year’s Eve gig after sharing an image of her holding a prop of President Trump’s decapitated head in 2017, but social media censors were far less severe. “Seinfeld” writer Larry Charles shared the grisly image two days after the 2020 election, praising Griffin’s courage for creating it. Griffin retweeted the message with a thank-you note. Both tweets remain visible on the platform without any brushback from Twitter’s «community guidelines» team. Comic actress and singer Bette Midler’s Twitter account routinely flirts with sexist, racist and xenophobic wisecracks without any punishment. She has even suggested political violence: “Where’s Rand Paul’s neighbor when you need him?” she tweeted in 2018, referring to the attacker whose suburban yard assault punctured the Kentucky senator’s lung and cracked six of his ribs. Keri Smith, co-host of the “Unsafe Space” podcast, a booker for progressive comics before disavowing woke culture, says the only complaints about censorship she hears are from comics who don’t toe progressives’ social-justice line. “I can’t think of any comics on the left who face something similar,” Smith says. Contacted for this article, major social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok, declined to comment. YouTube said Di Paolo was suspended for denying the existence of COVID-19, but he said he had only questioned its severity and requirements to wear masks. The restrictions are happening as Big Tech purges right-of-center voices across the digital landscape – Donald Trump’s and those of numerous others. Most comics interviewed for this article acknowledged the need for platforms to have some rules regarding content. But all were frustrated about a lack of transparency and clarity in applying those rules. A case in point is comedian Ryan Long. He has attracted more than 3.4 million views on YouTube for his skit jabbing at political correctness, “When Wokes and Racists Actually Agree on Everything,” in which two white, polar-opposite characters find common ground with: “Your racial identity is the most important thing” and “Minorities are a united group who think the same and act the same and vote the same.” But that escaped sanction while TikTok and Instagram instead removed a different video of his, in which women respond in politically incorrect ways to various news headlines, including “How White Women Use Themselves as Instruments of Terror.” Response: “The last time I checked, terrorists are Mus— white men,” the speaker says, catching herself before saying Muslims.
