Google accused of 'illegal contributions' to pro-amnesty campaigns

Google accused of 'illegal contributions' to pro-amnesty campaigns

FEC asked to investigate, intervene

Published: 3 hours ago
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An organization that opposes illegal immigration filed a complaint asking the Federal Election Commission to investigate Google’s “illegal contributions of value to pro-amnesty Democrat and GOP campaigns.”


William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, said the complaint alleges Facebook, Google and Twitter violated federal regulations that prohibit corporations and corporation employees “from contributing any services or anything of value to elections and campaigns.”
“Silicon Valley companies are contributing to Democrat campaigns by silencing conservative opposition to illegal immigration and groups like ALIPAC that support the conservative anti-amnesty opponents of left-wing candidates favored by these companies,” he said.

One provision states: “National banks and corporations organized by authority of any law of Congress are prohibited from making a contribution, as defined in 11 CFR 114.1(a), in connection with any election to any political office, including local, state and federal offices, or in connection with any primary election or political convention or caucus held to select candidates for any political office, including any local, state or federal office.”

The complaint to the FEC alleges Google, Facebook and Twitter employees are breaking U.S. laws “by using their company technologies, equipment, and employees to contribute to campaigns and influence the outcome of U.S. elections, legislation, and policies in favor of left-wing positions they share with the Democratic Party and Democrat candidates and certain Republicans who also support increases in foreign labor visas and Amnesty legislation backed by these companies.”

WND reported last month ALIPAC sent letters to the tech companies charging that their blocking of ALIPAC’s access to constituents, censorship of its video library and manipulation of search rankings has damaged the group.


Gheen wrote: “We hope that you will now honor our request to remove any shadow bans, censorship, or unequal products and services being applied to us, due to our political stances against illegal immigration and amnesty legislation in D.C.”

ALIPAC also recently asserted it is being “severely censored, hampered, and abused by the Silicon Valley corporations of Google, Facebook, and Twitter, which publicly oppose and lobby against our positions while simultaneously providing us with unequal services based on our political creed which can be defined by our support for America’s existing border and immigration laws.”

“These companies have collectively reduced our web traffic to our main website at ALIPAC.us, reduced our search result rankings drastically, banned us at times, shadow banned us covertly, suppressed our content and releases, blocked ads, removed our ability to place ads, deleted videos and content, made multiple false accusations of ‘hate speech’ or ‘hateful content’ against us, and refused to verify our accounts,” ALIPAC said.

ALIPAC explained to the FEC: “The leadership of these companies have all publicly stated they support amnesty legislation for illegal immigrants which ALIPAC opposes, and they have created an umbrella campaign wing through organizations like Facebook’s FWD.us. While their companies seek to support candidates and campaigns that share their views on immigration, they are simultaneously using their company resources to suppress and hinder ALIPAC and many other conservative pundits, bloggers, candidates, and voices.”

Gheen said the documentation “is piling up rapidly showing these companies are engaged in a wide pattern of censorship, shadow banning, and unequal services and products offered to Americans based on our politically conservative creeds.”

“The result of these collective actions of these powerful Silicon Valley based companies, often acting in collusion with each other, is to silence and restrict the protected political freedoms of American conservatives engaging in individual or grassroots political action. We believe their bias and influence is clearly designed to affect the outcome of U.S. elections on behalf of the Democrat party and this violates U.S. laws designed to protect U.S. citizens from undue corporate meddling in elections.”
WND reported ALIPAC is one of many conservative organizations facing similar censorship by the tech giants, who claim to be open and neutral platforms for speech.

Efforts to combat “hate speech” have targeted conservative and Christian organizations.

One example cited in ALIPAC’s report was a Google worker or activist “empowered by Google” who was given administrator access to ALIPAC’s YouTube channel, deleting all 115 of the group’s videos.
Many of the videos were linked by CBS, ABC, MSNBC, Fox News and others, ALIPAC said.
The group pleaded for help restoring the videos, but the company “refused.”

“We respect the rights of companies to set their own policies and operate as they see fit, [but] American conservatives like us face rules that are arbitrarily and capriciously enforced,” ALIPAC said. “Our organization’s abilities, influence, and capabilities have been greatly harmed by what we believe to be unfair business practices and violations of our American civil rights by the Silicon Valley corporations of Facebook, Google, Twitter and others.”

ALIPAC’s report was entered into the Congressional Record by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.
The report said companies such as Google, Twitter, Facebook and Amazon have put limits on conservatives such as Diamond and Silk, Center for Immigration Studies, Ann Coulter, Alex Jones, California Republican congressional candidate Elizabeth Heng, executive director of the Ron Paul Institute Daniel McAdams, Milo Yiannopoulos, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Prager University, Overpasses for America, Canadian intelligence expert and prominent anti-Islamist researcher Tom Quiggin, Jihad Watch, David Horowitz of Frontpage Magazine, YouTubers James Allsup and Lauren Southern, Steven Crowder and Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin.

https://www.wnd.com/2018/11/google-a...sty-campaigns/