Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told the Senate Judiciary Committee today that Big Tech censorship is the “single greatest threat” to “free speech” and “fair elections” in America. Cruz also called for legislation specifically targeting Big Tech’s biased censorship.
Antitrust legislation was being discussed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Cruz took advantage of the discussion on Big Tech abuses and spoke out about the increasing problem of bias online censorship. Cruz ultimately concluded that “Big Tech are the robber barons of our modern age.”
Cruz attacked the Big Tech oligarchs. “[T]he power that has been aggregated in the hands of a handful of Silicon Valley billionaires exceeds any accumulation of power in the history of our country,” he said. “It would make John D. Rockefeller blush, just [to] see the power today’s Big Tech oligarchs wield.” Cruz sees this power as a threat to America’s constitutional freedoms and elections. “I think Big Tech censorship is the single greatest threat to free speech in America, and it is the single greatest threat to free and fair elections in America.”
Cruz then went on to describe more precisely the abuses Big Tech makes from its unrivalled power. “There are competitive abuses that hammer the little guy, that hammer small players, that leverage their monopoly power to produce massive profit windfalls,” he criticized. “There are also censorship abuses, which many of us have raised. Many hearings were held about the Big Tech censorship. It is pervasive, it is malicious, and it is brazen.”
Cruz maintained that online censorship was a growing problem. “And Silicon Valley keeps getting worse and worse because no matter how egregious they get with censorship, they’ve discovered there are seemingly no limits and very few downsides to engaging in their self-declared role as the arbiters of what is allowed to be said and what is not allowed to be said,” he said.
The senator ended by criticizing the lack of focus on censorship in lawmakers’ tech reform proposals. “And I Wish This committee was addressing the problem You can contact directly, and carrying through on our obligation to defend the constitutional rights of Americans, to defend free speech,” Cruz stated. “I wish we were taking up You can contact directly a bill targeting Big Tech censorship—and I wish we had bipartisan agreement to do so. That’s what we should be doing. We’re not there yet, and this is not that bill.”
Cruz stated that Big Tech censorship has an effect on elections. A 2020 MRC Study found that Biden would lose the election if his supporters had been more aware of his social media scandals.
Conservatives being attacked. Tell your representative to demand Big Tech be held accountable: Tech companies should not deny their users the First Amendment’s freedom of speech. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s Use the contact formPlease help us make Big Tech more accountable.