Google and Facebook, a major presence at CPAC last year, were nowhere to be seen this year amid claims of anti-conservative bias on their platforms
OXON HILL, Md. — A year ago, attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual jamboree of the political right … Tweets: @grynbaum Tweets: Michael M. Grynbaum / @grynbaum : Google & Facebook wined & dined conservatives at last year's CPAC. In 2019, Big Tech was nowhere to be found. http://www.nytimes.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The absence closes a four-year arc that began when ex-Facebook curators described suppressing conservative news in trending topics, escalated through the [[a:933180|2018 congressional hearings where Republicans pressed bias claims and Alex Jones and Laura Loomer appeared]], and hardened this January when reporting showed Facebook and Twitter quietly turning to right-leaning groups to help referee political speech.
Against that backdrop, Google and Facebook pulling out of CPAC entirely — after wining and dining attendees there just a year earlier — reads less like a scheduling choice than a retreat from a room where they can no longer control the narrative.
First-order effects
- Conservative activists and lawmakers lose their most direct informal access channel to Google and Facebook policy teams, which had used CPAC booths and parties for relationship-building as recently as last year.
Second-order effects
- With the platforms absent from the room, bias accusations go unanswered in real time, pushing Facebook and Twitter further toward the behind-the-scenes reliance on right-leaning referee groups reported in January rather than public engagement.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — and CPAC 2023 later cast Google, Meta, and Twitter as central villains with a Section 230 repeal panel — Big Tech's engagement with the right shifts permanently from presence to proxies like Meta-founded American Edge, while content-moderation disputes migrate from conference halls to legislation.
The trend: Big Tech is trading visible political engagement for behind-the-scenes and proxy advocacy as anti-conservative bias accusations harden from talking points into structural opposition.