Florida Governor Ron DeSantis launched an offensive against “Big Tech” on Tuesday, warning that social media platforms are targeting politicians like former President Donald Trump now, but will soon come after regular US citizens , promising to combat the threat.
“Today they can come after someone who looks like me. Tomorrow they can come after someone who looks like you, ”said DeSantis, a Republican, during a press conference outside the state capitol when announcing the Technology Transparency Act.
The governor said he intends to “protect the privacy” of the “oligarchs of Silicon Valley” – Google, Facebook and Twitter – because the platforms “have moved from neutral platforms to applicators of preferred narratives”.
“I am committed to addressing what may be one of the most widespread threats to American self-government in the 21st century,” he said.
He singled out Twitter for suspending Trump’s account “due to the risk of further incitement to violence” after the January 6 Capitol riots and Amazon shutting down its servers for alternative social media Parler.
“What about the 88 million Americans who chose to follow Donald Trump? Excuse me. Twitter content moderators pulled the plug, ”said DeSantis.
After Twitter suspended Trump’s account, many of his followers turned to Parler, hoping to express their opinions and beliefs in a less regulated environment, until tech giants turned against him.
“What really scared me was Parler’s beheading,” he said. “Great technology has started to look more like the older brother with each passing day.”
As an example of great technology intervening to block information they disagreed with, Desantis mentioned the October Post story about Hunter Biden’s international negotiations blocked by Twitter.
“Hunter Biden’s story was true. The typical corporate media preferred to ignore it. They wanted to defeat Trump, ”he said, adding that the report on President Biden’s son“ did not get any traction ”weeks before the election.
He said that reporters would not have hesitated to go after him if he were the subject of the same story.
“You are trying to tell me if there is hacked information that could harm me, would you not be publishing? Give me a break. “DeSantis said.” You would print every day if you could. And Big Tech would allow it to proliferate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. “
As part of his measure, DeSantis suggested fines of $ 100,000 a day for removing political candidate platforms, as well as daily fines for any company “that uses its content and user-related algorithms to suppress or prioritize access to any content. related to a political candidate or cause on the ballot. ”
The governor also asked people to choose not to participate in content algorithms, requiring notification of changes to terms of service and giving citizens the right to take legal action if these conditions are violated.
DeSantis announced that, according to its policy, Florida AG would be empowered to file lawsuits against technology companies under the Unfair and Misleading Practices Act.
“Floridians must have the privacy of their data and personal information protected, their ability to access and participate in protected online platforms and their ability to participate in elections protected from Big Tech interference. What started as a group of new West Coast technology companies has grown into an industry of monopoly platforms that monitor the influence and control the flow of information in our country and among our citizens, ”said DeSantis.
“The central question here is: will consumers have the option of consuming the information they choose or will the Silicon Valley oligarchs make these choices for us?”