The Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon exposed the dangers of Big Tech censorship and the importance of free speech in a passionate speech before the House of Representatives.
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce hosted a hearing on March 28 titled “Preserving Free Speech and Reining in Big Tech Censorship,” where Seth Dillon unloaded the real intent behind the anti-free speech left. Dillon said:
“We learned the hard way that censorship guards the narrative, not the truth. In fact, it guards the narrative at the expense of the truth.”
Dillon detailed how his satirical site, The Babylon Bee, has faced an onslaught of censorship, ultimately hindering the site’s reach. Dillon explained:
“Our experience with Big Tech censorship dates back to 2018 when Facebook started working with fact checkers to crack down on the spread of misinformation. [...] Since then our jokes have been repeatedly fact-checked, flagged for hate speech and removed for incitement of violence, resulting in a string of warnings and a drastic reduction in our reach.”
Under its previous regime, Twitter banned The Babylon Bee after the satire site named Biden’s HHS Assistant Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine, “Man of the Year.” Dillon called out the anti-free speech left over its censorship of The Babylon Bee.
“Last year we made a joke about Rachel Levine, a transgender Health Admiral in the Biden Administration. USA Today had named Levine ‘Woman of the Year’, so we fired back in defense of women's sanity with this satirical headline, ‘The Babylon Bee’s Man of the Year is Rachel Levine.’ Twitter was not amused. They locked our account for hateful conduct and we spent the next eight months in Twitter jail.”
Dillon continued after moving on to speak about the importance of protecting free speech. Dillon is a vocal supporter of free speech in America and has repeated concerns about the dangers of muzzling conservative voices.
Dr. Jay Bhattachrya and Twitter Files journalist Michael Shellenberger also offered their testimonies in the two-hour-long hearing. Dr. Spencer Overton countered the pro-free speech witnesses by claiming that the First Amendment protects private companies in their muzzling tirade against conservatives.
The Babylon Bee is a member of the Free Speech Alliance.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the CensorTrack contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
