Federal Communications Commission chair Ajit Pai, the Donald Trump administration plant behind the repeal of net neutrality, is now very concerned about the neutrality of other tech companies.
Following weeks of conservative furor spearheaded by bullshit claims from the president of “SHADOW BANNING” on Twitter and blacklisting on the Google homepage, Pai has penned a letter on the eve of congressional testimony from Twitter’s Jack Dorsey. In the letter, Pai asks tech companies for more transparency about whether they are censoring people willy-nilly. As flagged by Engadget, Pai argued that users have “virtually no insight” into how these platforms reach content moderation or demonetization decisions—something that is true—and implored citizens to “seriously think” about “new transparency obligations.”
However, to make this ostensibly reasonable argument, Pai rattled off a list of Republican-approved grievances. Those included a manufactured conservative backlash to Sarah Jeong, a New York Times hire who had made jokes about white people on Twitter:
[…]In another section, Pai decried YouTube’s decision to age-restrict videosposted by right-wing media outlet PragerU. As Engadget noted, he declined to mention the “outlet’s history of inciting hatred against Muslims and other cultural groups”:
News Item