Christian broadcasters are demanding Congress crack down on social media censorship.
Last week, National Religious Broadcasters, an association of Christian communicators with a combined audience of at least 60 million, sent a formal request for congressional hearings about removing the Big Tech immunity from the Communications Decency Act. Removing this immunity would penalize companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter for their censorship without increasing government regulation.
NRB President and CEO Jerry A. Johnson wrote in a statment: “It’s time for Congress to seriously engage this issue since Big Tech shows little inclination to truly address the problem of viewpoint censorship of Christians and conservatives.”
Johnson argued that “if Big Tech is going to censor ideological content, Congress should determine if they have become de facto publishers. If so, are they no longer deserving of protections other publishers do not enjoy? Like other publishers, if they have wronged someone, perhaps they will have to have their day in court.”
Johnson told lawmakers, “It is unacceptable for technology giants to discriminate against users just because their viewpoints are not congruent with ideas popular in Silicon Valley,”
In a particularly egregious example of anti-Christian censorship, Facebook banned global philanthropist and evangelist Franklin Graham, during Christmas week.