by Luke Gentile
Rep. Darrell Issa , a California Republican, is demanding an apology from Google after a video of a speech he gave was removed from YouTube for spreading “medical misinformation,” according to an exclusive interview he gave with the Washington Examiner.
In the speech, given at the EDGE 2021 conference in Las Vegas , Issa discussed numerous technology areas, including artificial intelligence and open access to data.
Comparing vaccination efforts between the United States and Russia , Issa alluded to the space race.
“I referred to how far behind we were the Russians when they put Sputnik up during the Eisenhower administration and then pivoted to how the vaccine called Sputnik also beat us there,” the California Republican said. “But just like its predecessor, the Sputnik satellite, [the Russian vaccine] wasn’t as good, and at the end, we accelerated and passed them.”
The allusion was the only reference to any medical information in the speech on technology, but it saw the organization that had Issa as a speaker lose its YouTube page and “disappear.”
“When they take you off YouTube, they cut all the links, and they make you disappear,” Issa said regarding Google. “It’s their website or their YouTube account that has this blight on it where it’s been warned, and if it happens again, they’ll be suspended.”
The influence Google and Big Tech have on who can say what online has placed free speech in peril, Issa said.
“If they can take mine down while leaving up the Washington Post and the New York Times, who are saying bad things about Sputnik nearly at the top of the Google search, that’s just more of the evidence,” he said.
Google has not ruled out publicly that Russian collusion is the reason the speech was removed, according to a source close to the matter.
Issa said he did not state any medical misinformation and his speech was taken down for the sole reason that he is a conservative.
“If I said the vaccine doesn’t work, they could have some leg to stand on,” he said. “I’ve been saying the truth, and it’s still taking me down. They take people down because they don’t like our politics. That includes if we disparage vaccine mandates or we disparage masks or anything else.”
Issa is demanding an apology for groups like EDGE 2021, which stand to lose greatly in the face of Big Tech.
“I want that to be the apology,” the congressman said. “Say, ‘No, we were wrong’ and take down this warning that somehow they were guilty of posting medical misinformation.”
Issa is not stopping there, however.
Together with Rep. Jim Jordan , an Ohio Republican, Issa is working to eliminate Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which permits internet platforms like YouTube to have broad immunity relating to third-party content.
“If they didn’t have section 230 protection, we could sue them,” Issa said. “But, we can’t sue them because the federal government gave them special immunity that they’re abusing, and Jim Jordan, as leader of judiciary, is absolutely right, 230’s gotta go.”