Truly Foolish: Top 5 Most Ridiculous Cases of Big Tech Censorship

Big Tech censors: We know what we’re doing. Their algorithms are April Fools! It’s a tall task for Big Tech companies to justify mashing the censorship button on conservative speech when the systems they use to do their dirty work are so stupid that they always come back to kick them in the pants. 

MRC Free Speech America logged more that 3,500 cases in CensorTrack of censorship. Some cases, however, were so absurd that they discredit the entire system of fact-checking and censorship. MRC Free Speech America scanned CensorTrack for the most outrageous cases of censorship that were currently logged. Those ranged from Facebook getting upset with a gardening group because they used the word “hoe” to Twitter having a meltdown over a Clint Eastwood movie title because the Western jargon it used constituted so-called “abuse and harassment.”

It’s one thing for Big Tech companies to whip out their censorship tridents of truthspeak to target conservatives they don’t agree with. It’s another thing entirely when their tridents are feckless and poorly crafted. To quote comedian Rodney Dangerfield, “Just last week a guy pulled a knife on me. I could see it wasn’t a professional job — there was butter on it.”

Here are the Top 5 Dumbest Cases of Censorship found in CensorTrack’s database:

  1. What’s Your Favorite Clint Eastwood Film? Twitter: Don’t You Dare Say “Hang ‘Em High!”

Hollywood star Clint Eastwood’s 91st birthday was May 31, 2021, and users took to Twitter to celebrate. Another user asked fellow users what their favorite Eastwood film was to mark Clint Eastwood’s 91st birthday. Another user replied with “Hang em High,” which led to Twitter demanding the user delete the tweet and restricting his account for an unknown period of time. Twitter deemed that posting the name of one of Eastwood’s iconic films violated its “rules against abuse and harassment.”

  1. Facebook Flagged Posts of Scenic Tourist Spot for Promoting — Checks Notes — “‘Violence and Sexual Content.’”

When they mention “fishing spots at the Dyke of Cockshoot Broad,” Facebook users who are part of “Love Norfolk Broads”, had their accounts suspended. Here’s the problem: The “Dyke at Cockshoot Broad” is the name of a scenic tourist spot in the United Kingdom. Users who mentioned the name of the tourist spot received notices that their posts contained “violence and sexual content,” according to the New York Post. As such, Post pointed out: “the name isn’t even inappropriate in British vernacular. “Cockshoot”, a hunting term, refers only to the pursuit or catching of the wading bird the woodcock. However, the term ‘dyke,’ used in this context, simply means an obstruction that holds back water from rivers, lakes, and even the ocean.  While Facebook did apologize for this error, it does not conceal a shocking reality. Facebook is ready to sexualize innocent content just to justify its braindead copy-poaching operation. Big Tech speech control is built upon the irony that artificial intelligence was written by dumb-witted people.

  1. Instagram Has Conniption Over a “HalloWieners” Meme.

Youtuber Tyler ZedTweeted that Zed posted an Instagram satirical Halloween photo, “HalloWieners Black Licorice Flavored Dogs” Instagram applied a filter to the image and charged Zed with posting an “alternative photo”. USA Today’s fact-check stated that “despite viral image Oscar Mayer does not sell black licorice hot dog called ‘Hallowieners’.” Wow! Instagram apparently treated users like they couldn’t understand the joke in Zed’s photo.

  1. Twitter to Ice Hockey Fans: Thou Shalt Not ‘SHOOT THE PUCK’!

One Twitter user shared a picture of the notice it sent him, stating that it had locked his account. It also placed it in restricted read mode. His offense: He had the nerve to tweet at The Washington Capitals during Game 4 of the first round of the playoffs against the Boston Bruins: “@Capitals @Lexus SHOOT THE PUCK.” Twitter determined that his tweet violated its rules against “abuse and harassment.” Brilliant, so actually “SHOOT[ING] THE PUCK” could be considered murder in the first degree by Twitter’s logic. Clearly it is NOT okay for fans to vent frustrations about their teams if the word “shoot” is involved. Basketball lovers beware.

  1. Ho, Ho, ‘Hoe?’: Facebook Slaps Gardening Group for Over Word Confusion

Facebook flagged posts that contained the word “hoe”, which was part of a WNY Gardeners Group, after users refer to the helpful weeding tool..Even the stupidity of the censorship made it seem absurd. The Associated Press ran a story headlined: “Hoe no! Facebook snafu spells trouble for gardening group.” As AP reported, “Facebook’s algorithms sometimes flag this particular word as ‘violating community standards,’ apparently referring to a different word, one without an ‘e’ at the end that is nonetheless often misspelled as the garden tool.” Facebook apparently created a censorship algorithm with an innately filthy mind.

Conclusion: Big Tech Has No Idea What It’s Doing.

It’s bad enough that Big Tech companies make a point to censor conservatives simply because they don’t agree with them. It was even worse when people who said something about COVID-19 that Big Tech didn’t like started getting eliminated from social media. But it’s a higher level of Orwellian crazy when the algorithms governing the bloated censorship operations are less intuitive than a bag of hammers.

Conservatives under attack Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency. Contact us at Media Research Center if you feel your voice has been blocked. Contact formPlease help us make Big Tech more accountable.

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