Don't Get Too Excited About Tech 'Reform': Congress Wants Censorship Just As Big Tech Does
Congress, particularly the Senate, claims to be heavily focused on “reform” of Big Tech companies, or holding the latter accountable, just now. Don’t get me wrong, I think Big Tech is terribly corrupt—I have been censored unfairly by Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn within the last few months, and I’m not exactly a major target, like Donald Trump and Dr. Robert Malone, who have been banned by Twitter. On the other hand, I unequivocally disagree with everyone—Democrat, Republican, radical leftist, and conservative alike—who believes that Congress, or “President” Biden, is a solution to Big Tech (even “Republican” Sen. Thune wants Biden’s “help” with Big Tech).
The US government is a FAILED institution, as we have so clearly seen with the stolen election and all the outrages since, including the push for Covid vaccine mandates (with no FDA-approved Covid vaccine available and the vaccines having proven to be highly dangerous, no less). You cannot trust a system that is filled only with those who clearly don’t believe Americans should be able to think for themselves or those who are too cowardly to stand up to their opponents. I don’t trust Richard Blumenthal—or frankly, Ted Cruz—to protect my free speech online any more than I trust Mark Zuckerberg or Parag Agrawal. Most of the members of Congress (like Amy Klobuchar, who is obsessed with squashing Covid “misinformation”) now most active in pushing for “reform” of tech companies have made it clear they just want more censorship of “misinformation,” meaning anything Fauci doesn’t happen to approve today. They say as much.
And as for those who say they want to protect free speech, like Ted Cruz, they still seem to think that government could help regulate tech companies for the better. Only Ron Johnson spoke out against that false “solution,” as far as I have been able to find. As Johnson put it, Congress is no more an “unbiased arbiter or truth” than Facebook is. I rather wish Johnson were more aggressively rallying Americans against the government plan to control tech platforms. That’s a movement I’d sure like to see!
Klobuchar and Sen. Luján introduced the “Health Misinformation Act,” which would incentivize tech companies to stamp out any health information online that contradicts the elitist narrative, or lose Section 230 immunities. This is just one of the terrifying pieces of legislation part of the so-called push for reform or accountability in Congress right now. And if leftist Facebook “whistleblower” Frances Haugen has her way, UK legislation which would criminalize trolling online will be a model of “reform” efforts.
In other words, Congress and Big Tech both want to shut down alternative voices (or anyone speaking truth): they just disagree about who should be in charge.