The Manipulators

Book excerpt: The dawn of the digital age was supposed to be a new era, when everybody would have a voice and battle it out in the marketplace of ideas—intellectual democracy at the touch of a keyboard. Social media offered a way for conservatives to outflank the leftist groupthink that dominated academia, the media, and the political establishment. But, as investigative reporter Peter J. Hasson shows in his explosive new book, The Manipulators, that's no longer the case. Instead, Big Tech companies have become enforcers of intellectual conformity: promoting leftist ideas, punishing dissent, and dictating politically correct opinions. Big Tech's grip on the levers of information seems unbreakable. Hasson, working with sources deep inside the tech giants, presents a chilling account of companies that relish their coercive power—and aren't shy about using it. In The Manipulators, you'll learn: • How tech companies skew search results and "fact-checks" in favor of left-wing ideas and liberal news sources • How Google employees organize anti-Trump "Resistance" on company time and with company resources • How Facebook gives special privileges to liberal publications • How Big Tech employees collude with liberal journalists and left-wing activists to dictate who can—and can't—have a voice online • How Twitter, which once touted itself as "the free speech wing of the free speech party," reinvented itself as a liberal news company • How pro-abortion extremists work with Big Tech to shut down pro-life speech online Big Tech has become the greatest threat to free speech and free thought in America. But Big Tech is not invincible. It is still vulnerable to conservative and consumer pressure—though not for long, if Democrats have their way. Peter Hasson provides a frightening look at the concentrated power of Big Tech, its extraordinary intellectual intolerance, and its determination to silence competing voices and even dictate our thoughts. The Manipulators is a warning about rampant political censorship that will only get worse unless Big Tech meets big opposition.