Study Shows Social Media Sites Censor Christian Views

by Dave Bohon
Sunday, 18 September 2011

The National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), the official organization representing the interests of Christian broadcasters and ministries, has released a report showing that social media websites are actively censoring Christian viewpoints. According to an NRB press release, the group’s study examined “the practices of Apple and its iTunes App Store, Google, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, as well as Internet service providers AT&T, Comcast and Verizon,” The findings, said the NRB’s senior vice president and general counsel, Craig Parshall, were “ominous.”

Commenting on the report, the NRB’s president and CEO, Dr. Frank Wright, noted that nearly 70 years ago “NRB was founded in the fires of adversity when government regulations, combined with policy decisions by major networks, made it virtually impossible for evangelical ministers to buy radio airtime.” In today’s world, he said, “millions of individuals use radio, television, and the Internet to listen to the broadcasts, live web streaming, and podcasts of NRB member organizations.” If the viewpoints and content of Christian groups continue to be targeted for censorship by new media companies, warned Wright, the message of the Christian faith “could become one more casualty of institutionalized religious discrimination.” the rest

The NRB found that among the major players in new media, only Twitter had shown fairness toward Christian opinions. “There’s actually a pattern of anti-Christian censorship that’s already occurred among several of them,” said Parshall. “And, then, when we looked farther, looked at their written policies, we found that [anti-Christian policy with] everyone of them, except for Twitter.” He added that Twitter received an “A+” from the religious broadcast group. “The rest of them get failing grades.”

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