The National Religious Broadcasters organization wants a dialogue with new media companies about the potential for censorship of religious speech — though NRB suggests it is not looking for a religious version of network neutrality rules.
RW sister publication Broadcasting & Cable reported that an analysis was released at a press conference in Washington Thursday and conducted by Craig Parshall, SVP and general counsel of NRB. It stated: “Christian ideas and other religious content face a clear and present danger of censorship on Web-based communication platforms.”
That was the conclusion of a study of iTunes App Store; Facebook; MySpace; Google; Twitter; and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon.
Of those, only Twitter would pass First Amendment muster if judged by traditional Supreme Court free speech principle, said the group. “All of the other new media platforms and service providers have written policies in place that violate fundamental rules of free expression, particularly as applied to religious free speech,” it said.
Read B&C’s coverage here.