LinkedIn censors GOP candidate for comments on China and climate change, Ramaswamy criticizes ‘election interference’.

Republican Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is speaking out against LinkedIn for allegedly interfering with the presidential election by locking his account over comments he made about the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the Biden administration, and climate change.

“If they can do it to me, they can do it to anyone. It’s remarkable that expressing fact-based views on climate policy and China-related policy, including legitimate criticism of President Biden, would result in outright censorship by a Microsoft-owned social media company,” Ramaswamy, who announced his candidacy on Feb. 16, wrote in a statement to The Epoch Times on Thursday.

“Big Tech election interference has begun,” Ramaswamy said in a Twitter post on the same day.

LinkedIn Denies Access to Ramaswamy’s Account

Last week, LinkedIn denied Ramaswamy access to his account for comments that the social media platform says violates its User Agreement and Professional Community Policies. According to a screenshot of the company’s notice sent in an email to Ramaswamy, the comments in question include:

• A Feb. 5 statement by Ramaswamy: “The CCP is playing the Biden administration like a Chinese mandolin. China has weaponized the ‘woke pandemic’ to stay one step ahead of us. And it’s working.”
• A comment dated Feb. 16, which reads: “If the climate religion was really about climate change, then they’d be worried about, say, shifting oil production from the U.S. to places like Russia and China. Yet, the climate religion and its apostles in the ESG movement have a different objective.”
• A comment dated May 7, 2023, which says, “The climate agenda is a lie: fossil fuels are a requirement for human prosperity.”

Ramaswamy made all three comments in videos posted on the platform.

LinkedIn’s Response

LinkedIn’s action repeats a pattern of behavior shared by technological corporations that critics say amounts to censorship of alternative views. The platform wrote in an email to Ramaswamy on Thursday informing the presidential candidate that it does not “tolerate misinformation, hate speech, violence, or any form of abuse on our platform.”

“If you agree to abide by LinkedIn’s Terms and not to violate them again, we’ll grant another chance to regain access to your account,” reads a screenshot of another email that LinkedIn sent to Ramaswamy.

In response to a press inquiry on Thursday, LinkedIn wrote to The Epoch Times that Ramaswamy’s account was “restricted in error and it’s now back up.”

Ramaswamy’s Criticism of Big Tech

Notably, Ramaswamy has been a vocal critic of what he describes as a collusion between the federal government and Big Tech; the latter, he says, censors viewpoints on behalf of the government.

He proposed in his book, “Woke Inc.,” to amend Section 230—a law granting internet platforms immunity from liability based on users’ content—to roll back the extent of the law’s protection of these online platforms. Section 230 also applies to LinkedIn.

“In other words, ‘Internet Service Providers’ would have a choice: either they could benefit from the extraordinary privilege of legal immunity, or they could act like publishers and be held accountable for their content,” Ramaswamy wrote in his book.

Do you think LinkedIn’s actions amount to election interference? Share your thoughts in the comments below.