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I must admit, when I heard the title of this hearing, I was terrified. The censorship industrial complex? That sounds frightening! The thought that thousands of universities, NGOs, and government agencies are partnering to silence any dissenting views is a horrifying proposition. Are they really trying to silence our cherished small businesses?

Thankfully, the idea itself is fiction, cynically created by the right-wing outrage machine to drum up fear during election season.

There is simply no evidence that anyone in the small business community is being censored by the government for legitimate political speech.

Nor is there evidence that the accused universities and NGOs that make up the so-called “censorship industrial complex” have actually censored anyone.

A quick look into the FACTS of my colleagues’ investigation reveals a baseless effort to stir up anger and fear as we approach election season. It’s the oldest trick in the book and a cynical misuse of Committee resources.

Let’s take a look at the basic claims of their investigation:

First, the major claim is that the U.S. government funded the development of software that censors conservative media.

However, the fact is that a non-profit organization had already developed proprietary software that can detect patterns of misinformation online.

The Global Engagement Center at the State Department gave an award of $100,000 for three months of work to expand that software to six more languages: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Russian, and Ukrainian, to be used in Asia and Eastern Europe.

I suspect few of my colleagues would be against the State Department using its resources to detect Chinese or Russian propaganda overseas.

However, that is exactly what they are attacking at a crucial moment in history for our national security.

The Second major claim is that this software has been used primarily to censor conservatives here in the U.S. Again, this is baseless. The software assembles a list of thousands of websites around the world, a small fraction of which are American, which have a tendency to publish what they call adversarial content – basically content created to drive engagement by creating outrage.

Advertisers realized a long time ago that social media algorithms boost this type of content because it helps keep users online, but they don’t want to sponsor it.

This software fills a niche that advertising agencies were asking for.
It’s not censorship, it’s capitalism – something my colleagues usually unquestioningly support.

After all, if companies were forced to sponsor content they disagree with, that would be an egregious violation of their freedom of speech.

Let’s acknowledge what this investigation truly is – an attempt by the majority to weaponize the federal government against universities and non-profit organizations they disagree with. They want you to believe conservatives across the country are being silenced by some Orwellian censorship regime. That is pure fiction.

In reality, it they who seek to silence these organizations through threat of lawfare, investigations, and by encouraging harassment. It is censorship by proxy.

Mr. Chairman, when it comes to the intersection of social media, free speech, and small businesses, there are plenty of legitimate points of debate.

We could talk about section 230 or the concentrated private power of just a few tech companies to dictate who sees what, or whose voice gets heard.

We could talk about the reliance of small businesses on these platforms and the power platforms have to charge high fees. We could even talk about how small firms are the innovators, influencers, creators, and engineers of these platforms.

But Mr. Chairman, the “censorship industrial complex” is simply a distraction. My hope would be that you would use the gavel to bring attention to real issues facing small businesses. While we may disagree on tax or regulatory policy, or the best way to help small firms access capital, we can actually agree that those are real issues.