NRB Report Targets Written Policies of Google, Facebook, ISPs
Religious content is threatened by censorship on Web-based platforms, like those operated by Google, AT&T and Verizon, the National Religious Broadcasters said in a report released Wednesday. NRB drafted a charter aimed at identifying solutions to policies and practices of these companies that it claims violate free speech on the Internet. Private enterprise, with enormously successful platforms of communication, “is now becoming an engine of constraining speech,” said NRB CEO Frank Wright at the National Press Club.
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Some new media companies have already banned Christian content and they've been shown to “be responsive to market forces and the demands by pressure groups calling for censorship of those otherwise lawful viewpoints that are reasonably debatable but are deemed to be politically incorrect,” said the report, which is not yet available online from NRB. Apple removed “The Manhattan Declaration,” an app concerning a Christian ecumenical document favoring the “sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty,” from the iTunes Store, the report said. Apple deemed the app’s content against same-sex marriage offensive, NRB said.
NRB said censorship of religious content is evident in the written policies of new media companies. Only the policies of Twitter “would pass First Amendment muster if they are analyzed according to free speech principles articulated by the Supreme Court,” the report said. Other platforms and service providers have written policies “that violate fundamental rules of free expression, particularly as applied to religious free speech,” it added.
Last year NRB analyzed policies and practices of the companies for the group’s John Milton Project, said Craig Parshall, senior vice president at the NRB. “We started seeing some danger signs from Google, Apple and Facebook.” Twitter was the only one at the time that passed muster in terms of healthy, robust recognition of free speech, he said. The Manhattan Declaration incident and other examples “are troubling signs that the problems we saw a year ago are continuing,” he said. Some new media leaders have articulated openness and freedom of information on the Internet, but “they offer the American people less than what the First Amendment would protect,” he added.
The ubiquity of ISPs is key, said Steve Waldman, former senior adviser to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Internet service providers have strong marketing power, he said during a panel. Free speech issues “are most acute where ISPs have very strong monopoly power” and where they have 60-70 percent of the market for access to the Internet, he said. Religious conservatives “ought to be among the strongest allies of this current chairman at the FCC and his approach to open Internet” and they ought to be “among the strongest voices in questioning mergers,” where a content creator is also a pipe holder, he added.
Although there are troubling examples of censorship, there are other avenues and alternatives to accessing the desired content, said Adam Thierer, senior research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. “On your iPhone, you can open your browser and you can go find the Manhattan Declaration.” Thierer said that there shouldn’t be one speech standard for all platforms. Editorial discretion is the right to discriminate against viewpoints, he said. “There are certain things that newspapers don’t want to run,” he said. “You have that freedom under the First Amendment."
NRB suggests that the companies should follow “a free speech paradigm guided by basic First Amendment rules set forth by the Supreme Court.” The report also urges the companies to modify their policies and “renounce any past practices that have targeted for censorship otherwise lawful Christian viewpoints or expression.” Verizon and Twitter didn’t respond to requests for comment.