Censorship is slowly becoming the norm for big tech companies like Twitter and Amazon. These multi-billion dollar companies have been wielding their power to influence the national discourse to their liking.

But it isn't just Silicon Valley. Right here in Oklahoma, big tech attempted to silence a voice it disagreed with. On April 22, 2020, the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA) was served with a defamation lawsuit filed by Paycom Software Inc. The lawsuit claimed that a news story published by OCPA harmed the reputation of Paycom and resulted in a loss of business.

The lawsuit was dismissed by an Oklahoma County District Court judge on December 30, 2020, who stated that, “[b]ased on the absence of any evidence of actual malice by OCPA, Paycom has failed to show a prima facie case of defamation.”

The news story was posted on OCPA’s website on March 23, 2020. Subsequently, the share price for Paycom rose from $178.94 to $217.74, a 22 percent increase in over a month. (Over that same month major stock indexes like the Dow Jones and S&P 500 rose 24 percent.)

As of February 22, 2021, the share price was $380.74, a 113 percent increase.

According to public financial statements, Paycom’s total revenues for the second quarter in 2020 were $181 million, a 7 percent increase compared to the second quarter in 2019. Paycom’s total revenue for 2020 was $841 million, a 14 percent increase over the previous year.