Republican Senator Josh Hawley (Missouri state), on Fox News’ “Special Report” program on July 15, vehemently criticized the US federal government’s efforts to direct public companies. Big Tech performs user censorship. Hawley thinks it’s a partnership between a powerful government and a monopoly Big Tech.
[Senator Hawley]
Speaking to the Fox News host, Senator Hawley said: “I think it’s really scary when the US federal government, the White House make a list of individuals, organizations, everything and then Go to a private company, an authoritarian company like Facebook and say: You need censorship. You need to do something about this. You need to tell these users, these individual users what they can and cannot say. I mean, I really think that this kind of partnership between a powerful government and a big monopoly is very scary. And that’s really censorship.”
Senator Hawley likened these censorship actions to the function of a public service agency. He also argued that big tech companies should be demolished to “restore competition”.
The Missouri senator told the Fox News host: “On this point, you really have to wonder if they are private businesses. I mean, if you’re taking direction from the federal government, publicly cooperating with the federal government, you listen to what the government says, ‘we think this statement should be censored’, and with Big Tech, if they carry out these instructions, it looks to me like they are starting to function as a public agency.”
“There are also people who say we really have to treat [Big Tech] like public agencies,” Sen. Hawley continued. “We have to really manage these private companies like that. My view is that we must disband these companies to restore competition.”
“[Big Tech] is acting like the hand of the government. And when they’re monopolies, that’s a big deal,” Hawley said.
Earlier, on July 15, White House press secretary Jen Psaki revealed that the administration of US President Joe Biden was working with Facebook to “flag” posts deemed “problematic”. , which “spread misinformation” about COVID-19.
When asked at a press conference on July 15 about the Biden administration asking tech companies to be “tougher” on what they see as “false” information, Psaki said that the White House “usually regularly communicate with social networking platforms” to handle this issue.
“We are in regular contact with social media platforms, and those interactions are typically made by members of our senior staff and members of our COVID-19 team,” Ms. Psaki revealed. we. As Dr. Murthy said, this is a huge problem regarding pandemic misinformation.
