Google, Facebook, and Twitter have been exempt from federal regulation, as “platforms” and not “publishers” under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.  It has been known for a long time (and contested by those huge tech companies), that they have not been acting as platforms, but as publishers, by removing content they deem to be “misinformation” or “misleading”.  Two situations this year have been particularly indicative of this kind of action.

One is the vaccines for the Wuhan Coronavirus.  There are numerous arguments out there, as to the efficacy and safety of all the vaccines that are in the approval process by more than one alliance of various pharmaceutical and academic entities.  So, Google and the other Big Tech companies have taken it upon themselves to decide which information is correct and which is misleading.  They are approving or removing content from their search results.  And they are announcing those plans quite prominently.

The other big issue is the recent presidential election, the  results of which are still being contested by the Trump Campaign.  Google’s YouTube has announced, unilaterally, that it will be censoring/removing any content which implies that there may have been any amount of voter fraud that could affect the results.  They have called the election, and will brook no dissent.

So, Big Tech has appointed itself as the Arbiter of All Information.  That makes them Publishers, not Platforms, and the FCC should immediately declare them such, so they can be sued to within an inch of their corporate lives.