00:04:32.860So I started last year as the ranking member on the Senate Committee of Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
00:04:38.280And from that position as the ranking member, which means the senior Republican on that committee,
00:04:42.840I launched an investigation into the abuse of power from big tech.
00:04:46.600And this past week, we put out a major report.
00:04:48.800The report is entitled Weaponizing Terms of Service,
00:04:52.180How Online Service Providers Use Broad Policies to Silence Conservatives.
00:04:56.680Now, there are a lot of instances that we know about that get a lot of publicity.
00:05:01.180We know, for example, that Twitter, before Elon Musk purchased them,
00:05:06.100suspended the account of the Babylon Bee for making a joke about a Biden administration official.
00:05:11.480We know that both Facebook and Twitter suppressed stories about Hunter Biden's laptop before the 2020 election.
00:05:18.940We know that Facebook removed posts suggesting that COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan lab,
00:05:26.640something we talked about at length on this podcast,
00:05:29.940and a theory that has now been confirmed both by the Federal Department of Energy and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
00:05:35.380We know that YouTube took down a March 2021 video of a panel discussion with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis,
00:05:44.300during which he disputed claims that children needed to wear face masks.
00:05:48.740We know that YouTube also, which is owned by Google, blocked access to a November 2023 episode of this podcast verdict
00:05:57.880because we were criticizing the corporate media's favorable coverage of Hamas.
00:06:03.260And YouTube deemed, OK, you must be an adult to see what is on the network news.
00:06:09.320We also know in 2022, DirecTV dropped One America News Network less than a year after Democrat leaders in Congress sent a letter to the CEO
00:06:18.940calling on them to stop carrying the network.
00:06:21.700We also know they did the same thing to Newsmax.
00:06:24.020Now, I lit DirecTV up and they ended up bringing Newsmax back.
00:06:28.280We also know that Intuit, at the direction of its banking partners,
00:06:32.720refused to provide payment processing and payroll services to gun manufacturers and sellers.
00:06:40.980And we know that JPMorgan Chase closed the account of the National Committee of Religious Freedom,
00:06:47.380which was created by former State Department Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom
00:06:53.020and former U.S. Senator Sam Brownback.
00:06:55.280We know that GoFundMe blocked the release of $10 million of donations
00:07:00.920to the Canadian truckers' Freedom Convoy.
00:07:03.920We've seen that happen over and over and over again.
00:07:08.000Well, what this report does is it lays out an entirely new area of discrimination,
00:07:14.240and it is using web-based products and services, online service providers,
00:07:19.700to ban conservative organizations from using their technology.
00:07:23.740And it's going after the infrastructure that is needed to communicate.
00:07:29.180And in fact, this investigation reveals that online service providers are following a playbook
00:07:35.900for silencing conservatives that leftist organizations, including the Southern Poverty Law Center,
00:07:42.660which is wildly left-wing and hates conservatives, and the Anti-Defamation League, the ADL,
00:07:48.660they together put together this strategy, this playbook to, quote,
00:07:52.080remove infrastructure services that conservative organizations need to operate.
00:07:57.560And so I'm going to describe that playbook and what they're doing in particular.
00:08:02.080When you look at their playbook and this amount of influence,
00:08:06.340I mean, this can change and alter certainly an election cycle.
00:08:10.400It can certainly, I would argue, change a presidential election as well.
00:08:15.720And that's the reason why they're doing this.
00:08:19.320When you think about, you know, you've got millions of people that follow you.
00:08:23.720Facebook, I've got, you know, over a million.
00:08:26.620But if you turn off and throttle either one of us,
00:08:30.660then the reach that we have compared to the left, it just disappears.
00:11:26.060Quote, there are three main categories of infrastructure that keep websites running.
00:11:33.520Domain registrars, web hosting companies, and security protection companies.
00:11:39.700Number one, the website must be able to register and keep a domain name.
00:11:43.900A domain name, such as google.com or adl.org, is how visitors find a site.
00:11:50.000If a website is removed from domain name services, it becomes much more difficult, if not impossible, to find.
00:11:57.700Number two, web hosting companies and content distribution networks provide digital storage space for all the files, pictures, videos, and software that make up the content of a website.
00:12:10.280When a website loses its hosting provider, the site's content disappears.
00:12:17.300Losing a CDN, a content distribution network, can cause slow service for high traffic sites.
00:12:23.420And number three, a third category of infrastructure provider includes companies that protect websites from external security risks, such as distributed denial of service, DDoS attacks.
00:12:35.680DDoS attacks flood a website with fake traffic to overwhelm it, rendering it unable to answer normal user requests.
00:12:45.660If an infrastructure company, such as a network security firm, Cloudfair, refuses to provide DDoS protection to a vulnerable website, it is vulnerable to being flooded with traffic, rendering it inaccessible.
00:13:00.240So, you look at what we found out and what you just went through.
00:13:06.400The question is, how is it that these companies, and I'm specifically referring to big tech, are allowed to get away with this and do this to many people that they're in business with?
00:13:20.440I use myself as the example again, because I've experienced this.
00:13:25.060When you went into business, and I felt like I was in business with Facebook, they said advertise with us, right?
00:13:31.240Advertise your show, advertise your content, boost your content, spend money with us, and we're going to help you grow an audience, and it'll be good for everyone.
00:13:39.940And then, all of a sudden, they just shut you down, and they were able to walk away and just say, oh, well, you violated our terms of service, or you did this, or you posted too many things that liberals posted as saying they were factually incorrect.
00:13:55.740The liberals on the left, they were fact-checking and putting dings against conservatives, so they lose their reach, lose their ability to boost posts, lose their ability to advertise.
00:14:03.600And it was all being done to clearly influence public opinion, and yet they've gotten away with it.
00:14:12.240Well, what this report focuses on, many of the deplatforming steps by Facebook or Twitter or YouTube, they're very public.
00:14:21.480What this report focuses on is the ones that are not public, which is the back-office infrastructure.
00:14:26.500So let's take, for example, Slack, which is used for communication for many online organizations and companies.
00:14:34.740Slack canceled Libs of TikTok's workspace for violating its terms of service, and the terms of service prohibit users from, quote, engaging in activity that incites or encourages violence or hatred against individuals or groups.
00:14:49.880Slack determined that Libs of TikTok violated this policy based on three social media posts concerning, quote, gender-affirming hysterectomies and all-age drag shows.
00:15:04.440Slack shut down Libs of TikTok's workspace without any warning, without any explanation as to how it has violated Slack's policy.
00:15:12.020And Slack's action caused Libs of TikTok to effectively lose its use of Slack's communications and forced it to rely entirely on cell phones to run its business.
00:15:23.420Now, listen to this quote, which is fascinating.
00:15:27.000Slack told the Commerce Committee, told my investigation, quote,
00:15:30.840What makes Libs of TikTok's posts problematic is that Libs of TikTok has a specific audience,
00:15:38.200and they are taking this information and posting it to that specific audience so that everyone in that audience sees it at the same time.
00:15:46.020In other words, they didn't even find objections with what Libs of TikTok was posting.
00:15:50.440What they were mad at is conservatives were reading it, and that was enough reason to de-platform Libs of TikTok.
00:15:58.060So when you shut down a business, in essence, the way they did,
00:16:01.380is there any real and instant relief for Libs of TikTok or others, or is this one of those,
00:19:14.000So, Bonterra, which provides nonprofit management services.
00:19:17.800So, it's back office, but it's incredibly important.
00:19:20.900And there are very few providers of this.
00:19:23.680They denied those services to Independent Women's Forum, which is a conservative organization that is focused on advancing women's rights.
00:19:31.060And Bonterra concluded that it violated its policies, which require customers to agree to refrain from advocacy, denying, quote, LGBTQ rights.
00:19:42.140Or denying a woman's right to reproductive choice, or denying racial justice, or denying climate change.
00:19:49.740And their policies also prohibit customers from, quote, promoting, encouraging, or facilitating hate speech, violence, discrimination based on race, color, sexual orientation, marital status, gender, or identity expression.
00:20:02.400Bonterra notified Independent Women's Forum of its decision not to renew their contract without any explanation of how the organization violated this policy.
00:20:10.760As a result, Independent Women's Forum had to quickly move off Bonterra's platform and obtain a replacement services provider.
00:20:18.440Bonterra told the committee that Independent Women's Forum violated its terms of service because the organization, quote, works to restrict the rights of the LGBTQ community.
00:20:29.900Bonterra could not explain exactly how the group was working to restrict LGBTQ rights,
00:20:35.860but generally pointed to Independent Women's Forum's advocacy on issues like protecting women's sports and women's spaces.
00:20:45.540So if you actually think that girls should compete in girls' sports, that is a view that is not acceptable,
00:20:52.680and you will be denied online basic infrastructure from monopoly and near-monopoly providers.
00:20:58.800Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.
00:21:05.800And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk Podcast.
00:26:54.040But Politico has a new report out that says that Joe Biden's brother was winning business deals with business partners that were directly linked and tied to foreign governments.
00:27:05.020Those that were actually tied to terrorism.
00:27:07.440According to the outlet, Jim Biden, the president's brother, was in business with Qatari officials to fund his health care venture.
00:27:14.880That would be, quote, some of the closest known links between a Biden relative and a foreign government.
00:27:25.240This was a bombshell report that came out three days ago in Politico.
00:27:28.740The title of the report is, quote, fund manager indicates Jim Biden was in business with Qatari officials.
00:27:35.020And Politico explains, quote, new details about Jim Biden's foreign fundraising efforts are spilling out into a Kentucky bankruptcy court where recent testimony indicates that President Joe Biden's brother partnered with the Qatari government officials in his quest to find money for a U.S. health care venture.
00:27:52.960The sworn testimony by fund manager, Michael Lewitt, a former business partner of Jim Biden's, attests that two companies that facilitated the efforts were part owned by members of the Qatari government.
00:28:07.380One company named in the testimony partnered directly with Jim Biden in the multi-year fundraising efforts.
00:28:12.400The second company provided financial backing for a series of loans that a hospital chain paid Jim Biden to arrange, according to documents and testimony, Lewitt submitted in the course of the federal bankruptcy proceedings.
00:28:25.820If substantiated, the alleged arrangements would constitute some of the closest known financial links between a relative of President Joe Biden and a foreign government.
00:28:41.800We're hearing now that this money that was coming in was not just going to Jim Biden, but it was also going into the pocket of the now President of the United States of America.
00:28:54.940The this testimony that came out in this bankruptcy, these documents and now this this individual that did business with the Bidens, he said, look, at first there was a bridge loan to AmeriCorps that coincided with a payment from AmeriCorps directly to Jim Biden.
00:29:12.920The report says Biden said in testimony in February that the roughly six hundred thousand dollar payments that he received from AmeriCorps around the time
00:29:24.520where his role was in arranging, quote, was in arranging, quote, loans and many other services, quote, unquote.
00:29:30.920And then in March of twenty eighteen, Jim Biden transferred two hundred thousand dollars of the payments in question to then his brother, Joe Biden.
00:33:02.240Which is, Jim Biden presented a presentation on behalf of AmeriCorps saying that AmeriCorps was seeking $30 million in financing to acquire hospitals.
00:33:13.260Do you know how the presentation described Jim Biden?
00:33:17.200I'm going to guess Joe Biden's brother.
00:33:19.780It described him as totally separate person with no connection to the vice president of the president.
00:33:47.140And by the way, the money you give him, he'll give to Joe.
00:33:51.520Why is this not on the six o'clock news, Ben?
00:33:54.900Because it indicts the president of the United States of America in a pay to play scheme that would bring down, I would argue, any other presidency.
00:34:03.500Look, in any normal sense, that would be right.
00:34:08.440But if you look at these documents, these documents are being ignored by the media.
00:34:19.380So, for example, Lewitt wrote to Jim Biden to express confidence that his funds would be repaid immediately for its loans to AmeriCorps with money from Dubai, according to an email that emerged in the bankruptcy litigation.
00:34:32.160Quote, nothing else changes in terms of what I will be doing re-AmeriCorps since I will be just as responsible for the Dubai dollar, dollar, dollar, three dollar signs with the added worry of being driven around the desert.
00:34:53.620I mean, I'm sitting here and I say, wow, and I mean it, rarely am I speechless, but I go back to that sentence I wanted you to read again, where the pitch is to His Excellency.
00:35:05.180I mean, they're saying, hey, do business with us.
00:35:47.900So my family could provide a wealth of introduction and business opportunities at the highest level that I believe would be worthy of the interest of his excellency.
00:36:00.420And his and excellency are both capitalized on behalf of the Biden family.
00:36:35.200It was only countries that provide comfort and shelter to Hamas and terrorists who murder Americans.
00:36:41.940That was their business strategy is find people who hate America, find countries who are enemies of America, but who need favors from Joe Biden and go get hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars from them.
00:36:57.820And this comes, by the way, two weeks after James Biden.
00:37:00.980And it came out in court documents as well, apparently secretly negotiated one hundred and forty million dollar settlement deal in 2012 between a U.S. company and the Saudi Arabian government, quote, due to his relationship with then vice president Joe Biden, court documents revealed.
00:37:16.480And no one talked about that story either on the nightly news, as you mentioned a moment ago.
00:37:21.240Look, it reminds me of Mel Brooks's movie, History of the World, part one, where he says repeatedly, it's good to be the king.