Silicon Valley honchos have “overwhelmingly” contributed to Democratic nominee Joe Biden, as the tech industry largely hopes President Trump is defeated on Election Day, according to a review of campaign finance data by WIRED magazine.
“WIRED found that employees at Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Oracle have contributed nearly 20 times as much money to Biden as to Trump since the beginning of 2019,” the technology publication reported on Tuesday in a report headlined, “Silicon Valley Opens Its Wallet for Joe Biden.”
Conservatives and Trump supporters have long accused many tech companies of liberal bias and WIRED’s analysis found that “95 percent of contributions by employees of six big tech firms” have gone to Biden.
WHAT IS SECTION 230 OF THE COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT, AND WHY IS IT UNDER FIRE?
“Employees at Alphabet are Biden’s biggest financial backers in Silicon Valley, having donated just shy of $1.8 million, more than one-third of the money raised from employees of the six companies,” WIRED’s Daniel Oberhaus wrote. “WIRED’s analysis shows that employees at these six companies are contributing substantially more to both nominees than during the 2016 election.”
Media Research Center vice president Dan Gainor, who oversees the conservative watchdog’s TechWatch initiative, says the analysis is evidence that these wildly influential companies favor Democrats.
"The people who gave this money to Biden are also the ones making decisions on content and who gets silenced or censored."
“This is entirely the point that journalists refuse to get. Silicon Valley is dominated by the left from top to bottom. The people who gave this money to Biden are also the ones making decisions on content and who gets silenced or censored,” Gainor told Fox News.
NBC NEWS UNDER FIRE FOR APPARENTLY PUSHING GOOGLE TO REMOVE CONSERVATIVE SITES FROM AD PLATFORM
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 states that "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."
The section has been pivotal in the rise of today's social media giants by allowing not only Internet service providers – but also Google, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others – to be shielded from liability from content posted on their platforms by third parties, in most cases.
But critics believe that Google and other companies should no longer benefit from protections of Section 230.
HAWLEY INTRODUCES BILL TARGETING BIG TECH COMPANIES OVER POLITICAL CENSORSHIP CONCERNS
“This is why Congress needs to get involved and change Section 230. Every aspect of our lives is now online – from government records to shopping to dating to politics. We can't allow a small, leftist cabal to determine who is free and who isn't online,” Gainor added.
The WIRED analysis indicated that Biden has received nearly $5 million from Silicon Valley employees while Trump has received less than $250,000. While the difference is overwhelming, Gainor is surprised anyone working in Silicon Valley was willing to donate to Trump.
“Honestly, I'm shocked that that many people in Big Tech gave to Trump. Those donations are public, so those employees can probably expect to have it hurt or end their jobs,” Gainor said.
President Trump signed an executive order in May that could remove some big tech protections if companies engage in "selective censorship" harmful to national discourse. The order came shortly after Twitter attached fact-check warnings to some of the president's tweets.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP
"Section 230 was not intended to allow a handful of companies to grow into titans controlling vital avenues for our national discourse under the guise of promoting open forums for debate, and then to provide those behemoths blanket immunity when they use their power to censor content and silence viewpoints that they dislike," the executive order stated.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox