Less than a month after the Facebook summit between founder Mark Zuckerberg and leading conservatives, the tense relationship between Silicon Valley and conservatives has taken a turn for the worse.
There was more uproar on the right Monday over moves by two top websites to suppress information about the Orlando mass shooter’s ties to the Islamic State, just days after Google was accused of burying negative stories about presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Even as companies like Facebook and Google deny any institutional political bias, conservatives like Less Government’s Seton Motley say that Silicon Valley’s liberal titans apparently can’t help themselves.
“These are left-wing guys,” said Mr. Motley, a longtime Silicon Valley critic. “There are very few non-left-wingers in Silicon Valley. [PayPal co-founder] Peter Thiel is one of the few exceptions. You’ve got to be aware.”
Facebook found itself back in the spotlight Monday after anti-jihad activist Pamela Geller said that two of her pages were deleted in the aftermath of Sunday’s horrific Orlando massacre, in which a pro-Islamic State gunman slaughtered 49 people at a popular gay nightclub before being killed by a police tactical unit.
Ms. Geller posted a message Sunday from Facebook saying her page Stop Islamization of America violated the company’s ban on “groups that are hateful, threatening or obscene.” She also said that a Facebook account in her own name had been frozen for 30 days.
Both pages were operating again by Monday afternoon, a day after Ms. Geller asked SIOA’s 57,000 followers to “politely request reinstatement of our group.” Facebook did not immediately return a request Monday for comment.
“It is not hateful, obscene, or threatening to oppose jihad terror such as we saw in Orlando last night,” Ms. Geller told Breitbart. “Truth is not hateful or obscene. What is hateful, obscene and threatening is that Facebook is moving to silence everyone who speaks honestly about the motivating ideology behind such attacks.”
As for Mr. Zuckerberg’s assurances that Facebook is not biased against conservatives, “They’re utterly and absolutely hollow,” she said.