Breitbart hosting ‘big tech’ town hall on threats to free speech

Breitbart News is hosting a live town hall on Thursday night in New Orleans focusing on “big tech,” warning that free speech is under attack from the industry.

“Big tech is the biggest threat to free speech at this moment in time, and there is no fiercer advocate for the First Amendment than Breitbart News,” said Alex Marlow, Breitbart’s editor-in-chief, in an announcement.

“Never has so much power been concentrated in the hands of so few people, and Silicon Valley elite have, thus far, been able to operate with virtually zero transparency,” Marlow said. ” ‘The Masters of the Universe’ are unfathomably influential, secretive, and they are surveilling all of us right now, stockpiling our data for their own purposes. It’s time we broaden the discussion.”

The event will be live-streamed on Breitbart.com and Facebook starting at 7 p.m. It will feature a panel moderated by Marlow that includes provocative conservative commentator and author Ann Coulter, “Clinton Cash” and “Secret Empires” author Peter Schweizer and Robert Epstein, a senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology.

“The panel will discuss anti-consumer practices by big internet monopolies like Google and Facebook — and the effects of these practices on free speech, consumer privacy, and competition,” the announcement adds.

Breitbart’s foray into live events comes two months after its executive chairman, Stephen Bannon, was forced out of the publication for making denigrating remarks about President Trump’s family that appeared in “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” Michael Wolff’s bestselling book. 

The New Orleans event is “the latest evolution in how to consume Breitbart content,” Marlow told The New York Times in an interview last week.