Is Reuters Trying To Legitimize Big Tech’s Censorship?

The Reuters Article: “Investors push for social media controls ahead of U.S. inauguration”

The following statements from Reuters article use classic propaganda and framing techniques to create fear and the suggestion of implicit truth!  A real journalist would look at the sources to identify their bias.  The political leanings in the following article are not mentioned.  I will highlight framing techniques in bold in the article.  What are the actual facts and what is framing? 

How they start the article is important?

How they lead the article is very important because often people don’t read the article in full.  They may trust the initial proposition without further digging.  What did the writer tell you in the first paragraph? That investors, pension and religious groups, want more censorship of social media content to reduce violence.  Sounds like these investors are truly wonderful individuals who are willing to lose investment returns to limit violence?  Until you find out at the end of the article that they only have small stakes in the Social Media Companies – how kind of them!

Another framing statement in the first paragraph is the suggestion of that threats of violence exist!  This statement is not supported they just expect you to believe it!

Who are those investors mentioned, do they have bias?

Thomas P. DiNapoli (born February 10, 1954)[1][2] is an American politician serving as the 54th and current New York State Comptroller since 2007. A member of the Democratic Party, he was previously the New York State Assemblyman for the 16th district, first elected in 1986.

DiNapoli was elected by the New York State Legislature as New York State Comptroller on February 7, 2007; he was formerly the Chairman of the Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee. He is a resident of the village of Great Neck Plaza on Long Island. In November 2014, he won reelection, leading the statewide ticket with the most votes.[3] He was easily reelected to a fourth term in November 2018, receiving 64.9% of the vote.[4]

Mary Kay Henry seiu.org

Mary Kay Henry is an American labor union activist who was elected International President of the Service Employees International Union on May 8, 2010. She is the first woman to lead the union. A pioneer in non-traditional collective bargaining agreements.

Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) is a liberal religious association of Unitarian Universalist congregations. It was formed in 1961 by the consolidation of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America.[4] Both of these predecessor organizations began as Christian denominations of the Unitarian and Universalist varieties respectively. However, modern Unitarian Universalists see themselves as a separate religion with its own beliefs and affinities. They define themselves as non-creedal, and draw wisdom from various religions and philosophies, including humanism, pantheism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, Islam, and Earth-centered spirituality.[5][6][7] Thus, the UUA is a syncretistic religious group with liberal leanings.

In the United States, Unitarian Universalism grew by 15.8% between 2000 and 2010 to include 211,000 adherents nationwide.[8]

Manipulation using unsubstantiated claims to create an emotional reaction and fear

Is it a fact or does it have an emotional objective?  The whole article implies there is imminent violence being planned by white supremist groups and militias.  It then implies that those groups are associated with content from the movement called Qanon.  It links the action taken by Facebook with action being taken by Twitter to remove any Qanon content suggesting they are all violent antagonists. Is this actually true?

What did Twitter and Facebook do to limit BLM and Antifa radical groups?  Are they really trying to limit violence?

What they don’t talk about is just as important as what they do.  If there is content missing questioning the rights and wrongs of censorship then this demonstrates bias. There is no attempt to question the validity of censorship in the article.  The article seems to want to justify censorship to limit violence.  I believe this is the intention of the article.  This is propaganda not news.  I have highlighted all the statement in the article which I believe are statements made to help frame the propaganda message.

What is very disturbing is that this was published by Reuters which suggests Reuters is no longer trustworthy for real news.  This is very sad, but what do you think?

Here is the article, what do you think?

Reporting by Ross Kerber; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Raju Gopalakrishnan (you may wish to investigate the writers and editors of the article.. Do you trust them and their reporting?

“BOSTON (Reuters) – Pension fund managers and religious investors on Friday asked top social media companies to step up their content control efforts to reduce the threat of violence ahead of the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden next week.

The effort is the latest pressure on Facebook Inc, Twitter Inc and Alphabet Inc over extreme rhetoric after the storming of the U.S. Capitol last week by supporters of President Donald Trump.

In letters sent on Thursday, the investors – including New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, the Service Employees International Union and the Unitarian Universalist Association – asked for steps including disabling the coding they said tends to elevate conspiracy theories and radicalizing content, and for the companies to continue to flag content with hashtags like #Stopthesteal.

In the longer run, boards and executives must review their “business model and reliance on algorithmic decision making, which has been linked to the spread of hate and disinformation online,” the letters said.

Alphabet representatives did not respond to questions. A Facebook spokesman said it has banned over 250 white supremacist groups and enforced rules like those barring militias from organizing on its platform. A Twitter representative cited actions it has taken like suspending accounts that mainly shared QAnon content.

Violent rhetoric on social media platforms has ramped up in recent weeks as groups planned openly for the gathering in Washington, according to researchers and public postings, prompting criticism of the companies for failing to take action in advance.

Twitter and Facebook banned Trump’s accounts last week as the tech giants scrambled to crack down on Trump’s baseless claims of fraud in the U.S. presidential election.

The activist investors together manage about $390 billion in assets but own relatively small stakes in the social media companies. Top shareholders in the space so far have declined to comment on their responses including BlackRock Inc Vanguard Group Inc and Morgan Stanley.

The bans on Trump have prompted concern among other investors that users and advertisers would leave for different platforms. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said the decision was correct but set a dangerous precedent. Facebook operations chief Sheryl Sandberg has said the company has no plans to lift its ban.”