Activist Investor Michael Coudrey Calls Upon Institutional Traders: “Sell Off Google, Facebook & Twitter Stock Over Censorship & Elections Interference Allegations” NewRightUS Follow Jun 29, 2019 · 3 min read

Activist Investor Michael Coudrey urges institutional traders to sell off Google, Facebook and Twitter stock

Summary

Numerous complains from the public and members in Congress have raised significant concerns over censorship and elections interference by social media companies.

Project Veritas, a journalistic organization, released undercover video showcasing prominent social media company employees admitting to the allegations of censorship and elections interference.

US Senator Josh Hawley moves to strip social media giants of platform status.

-Significant liability implications would ensue for social media companies for all content uploaded to their websites.

On Saturday morning, Activist Investor Michael Coudrey called upon Vanguard Group, Blackrock Inc. and other large institutional holders of $GOOG, $FB and $TWTR stock to dump their holdings over censorship and elections interference allegations, highlighting the implications in liability should the social media giants lose their Section 230 platform protective status.

The statement can be viewed here, or at the bottom of this article.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act states “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”. It’s considered a vital piece of legislation for the internet as without it platforms such as forums, social media and YouTube wouldn’t be able to allow their users to instantly upload their own comment and content.

The key feature concerns legal protection. If you’re considered a publisher, then you’re legally liable for everything that appears on your site as you are considered to have published it yourself. If US law views you as a platform, however, you are spared such liability because you’re deemed to have no influence over what gets whacked up on your site by its users.

When you start censoring them, however, that line becomes blurred. If, say, Facebook decides certain types of content are not allowed on its platform and actively censors them, then the implication is that it approves of everything it doesn’t censor. That, in turn could be perceived as it acting more like a publisher than a platform and should therefore lose its legal protections.

This seems to be the view of US Senator Josh Hawley, who has introduced new legislation he’s calling the Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act. “With Section 230, tech companies get a sweetheart deal that no other industry enjoys: complete exemption from traditional publisher liability in exchange for providing a forum free of political censorship,” said Hawley. “Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, big tech has failed to hold up its end of the bargain.

Excerpt from Telecoms

Of the numerous institutional investors with holdings in the mentioned social media companies, Vanguard Group Inc. and Blackrock Inc. have by far the largest holdings in Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

Michael Coudrey urges Vanguard Group Inc. & Blackrock Inc. to sell their shares in social media companies to protect clients from “significant downside risk”.

Michael Coudrey’s statement: