The NRB Project for Digital Free Speech is a venture of NRB and is a pioneering project that monitors, documents, and advocates against threats of anti-Christian censorship and other free speech violations on the internet, and especially on communication platforms established by “new media” tech companies in the private sector like Google, Facebook and Apple. The Project also evaluates the decisions made in the public, governmental sector as well when they infringe the First Amendment rights of citizens on the web.
This Project published a groundbreaking 2011 white paper report, True Liberty in a New Media Age, which explains how some of the policies and practices of new media tech giants have jeopardized fundamental values enshrined in the First Amendment. In 2012, the Project released its Free Speech Charter for the Internet, laying out a model to be followed by new media technology and communication companies that can serve the interests of both free speech and free enterprise. In 2013, the project released The Future of Free Speech, Free Press and Religious Freedom on Facebook, Google, Apple, etc. – A Current Assessment, which reported on the targeting of traditional values, conservative ideas, and Christian orthodoxy by companies including Facebook, Google, and Apple.
Most recently, in 2019, the Project published a report, titled Chokepoint: Solving Big Tech’s Grip over Free Speech, that details Silicon Valley’s pattern of opinion suppression practiced on their monolithic digital platforms. It makes the case that Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple are information monopolies, and have all committed viewpoint suppression against lawful opinions that they don’t like, including Christian content. The report also suggests a constitutional basis for government action against the companies, and a template for how that could be done.
The Project regularly conducts public discussions on Capitol Hill and in Washington relating to citizen free speech on the Internet, with past participation that has included present and former Commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission, and national experts from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, the Mercatus Center of George Mason University, the Heritage Foundation, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the American Center for Law and Justice, the Liberty University School of Law, the Alliance Defending Freedom, as well as Congressional staff.
To view examples of suppression of Christian and conservative views on the internet by private companies, click here.