Senator Josh Hawley says the most powerful tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon are working to ‘transform America’ and pose the ‘gravest threat’ to liberty – and thus need to be broken up.
Hawley told Fox News on Sunday that there was a ‘strong alliance’ between the left and ‘mega-corporations’ which threatened freedom of speech as well as free market principles including ‘competition and innovation.’
When asked if tech companies censor those who disagree with the Democratic Party, the Republican senator from Missouri responded: ‘For instance, if you post a comment that disagrees with [White House chief medical adviser] Dr. [Anthony] Fauci, you’re likely to get dinged.
‘Even if you’re an expert from Stanford or an expert from Oxford or an expert from Yale or Johns Hopkins, if your viewpoint doesn’t comport with the government-stated viewpoint out of the federal bureaucracy, you’re likely to pay a price.’
Hawley is promoting his new book, The Tyranny of Big Tech, as one that ‘corporate press, corporate media, and corporate monopolies’ want ‘canceled.’
The book goes on sale on Tuesday.
Hawley was referring to the decision by publishing house Simon & Schuster to drop the book after the MAGA riot at the US Capitol on January 6.
Hawley and other Republicans objected to certifying the results of the November 3 presidential election, which was won by Joe Biden.
The senator was seen entering the US Capitol before the riot, raising his fist in a gesture to MAGA supporters.
After the violence that ensued, Hawley was slammed for encouraging an insurrection and inciting protesters to storm the Capitol. Newspaper editorials condemned him and there was a social media campaign to ban his book.
‘The irony is, the book is about the control Big Tech has over our politics, and over our society, and it was Big Tech that led the effort to get this canceled,’ the senator told Fox News.
In explaining its decision not to publish the book, Simon and Schuster said that it ‘cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat.’
‘And that’s why they go out there and say, “Oh, the First Amendment doesn’t apply to Facebook,” “The First Amendment doesn’t apply to Google, so censor away,” and they want to combine the power of government and the power of these corporations.
‘And boy, is that dangerous for free speech.’
Hawley warned that ‘if the American people can’t decide what we want to read and not, if we can’t decide what kind of news we want to see and if we can’t talk about it together, if I’m not allowed to to share what I want to share in terms of [saying] “I think you ought to read this news story, I want to comment on this,” if there’s some censor out there who can effectively shut me down any time I express a contrary view, how is our democracy going to survive?’
Last month, Hawley put forward legislation titled the ‘Bust Up Big Tech Act,’ which would bar internet companies that own search engines or online marketplaces from also hosting their own computing services.
The bill would ban Amazon from selling Amazon-branded products on its own marketplace, which is used by other competitors. It would also prevent Amazon from owning the cloud computing services that other companies rely on for e-commerce.
Hawley said that if the law passed, social media would return to serve in the function that was originally intended.
‘I think if social media were truly social media, if it were really about communicating with each other, forming friend groups – think about Facebook before it introduced the newsfeed and algorithms that try to determine what we see and what we do, try to push advertising at us based on our behavior – before that, I think there could be a great benefit to having social media,’ Hawley said.
Hawley accused Facebook and Twitter of abusing the privacy of their users.
The two companies ‘take our data and personal information without our consent or knowledge, and then they try to use that in order to control what we see, sell stuff to us, and are constantly using artificial intelligence to push stories at us to get us to click on this, to buy that, to read that.’
‘I think that constant manipulation, which has become synonymous now with social media, I think that’s dangerous.
‘I think that’s bad, and I think the government shouldn’t be subsidizing it.’
Hawley said that if the public ‘can get to a place where we’re not being constantly manipulated by the companies, I think there can be great value in that.
‘I would say it is time we take back control over our own social communications from these companies, and practically speaking, people spend less time on the platforms, and do as much of our lives as we can with actual relationships, old fashioned meeting face-to-face, calling, texting,’ Hawley said.
‘But moving off the platforms so that they don’t control every aspect of our lives.’
Hawley said of the decision by the publisher: ‘I think it was a petition drive that started on Twitter – certainly was amplified by Twitter, that caused the corporate publisher to say we ought to back away from this.’
Hawley’s book was eventually picked up by another publisher, Regnery. The senator said that he was ‘grateful there are still independent publishers.’
‘This is a book that corporate leftists don’t want anybody to read, and for good reason,’ Hawley said.
‘This is all about how big tech and mega corporations are working hand-in-hand with big government to try to run our country, silence our speech, and take over our government.’
‘And we have to stop them.’
The senator said the large tech conglomerates – Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Twitter – are ‘so ubiquitous, so powerful, they are more powerful by the day.’
Hawley accused tech firms of having ‘interfered big time’ in the 2020 presidential election.
He specifically cited the controversial decision this past October by Twitter and Facebook to limit the circulation of a New York Post article about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.
The Post story was based on emails between the president’s son and an executive at Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings. Twitter took down the story initially because it was obtained through ‘hacked materials.’
Two weeks later, Twitter, which had placed a lock on the Post’s account, removed the lock and allowed the story to be shared freely on its platform.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told lawmakers in late April that the firm’s move to censor the story was a ‘mistake’ and that the company erred.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that the social network throttled the spread of the Post’s Hunter Biden story after it received a warning from law enforcement officials to be on ‘heightened alert’ about ‘hack and leak operations.’
Hawley also criticized the large tech firms for ‘de-platforming’ former President Donald Trump after the events of January 6.
In an unprecedented step, Facebook and Twitter suspended Trump from posting to their platforms hours after the storming of the Capitol by his supporters.
Twitter locked Trump out of his account for 12 hours and said that future violations by Trump could result in a permanent suspension.
The company required the removal of three of Trump’s tweets, including a short video in which he urged those supporters to ‘go home’ while also repeating falsehoods about the integrity of the presidential election.
Trump’s account deleted those posts, Twitter said; had they remained, Twitter had threatened to extend his suspension.
Facebook and Instagram, which Facebook owns, followed up in the evening, announcing that Trump wouldn’t be able to post for 24 hours following two violations of its policies. He remains banned from those platforms and has appealed to Facebook’s supposedly independent ‘Oversight Board’ to be readmitted.
While some cheered the platforms’ actions, experts noted that the companies’ actions follow years of hemming and hawing on Trump and his supporters spreading dangerous misinformation and encouraging violence that have contributed to Wednesday’s violence.
Civil liberties advocates have argued that large tech firms wield too much power in determining what information the public can be exposed to and whether it is permissible to censor unpopular views from the internet.
‘These are folks that want to try to impose their agenda – and it is a leftist, woke agenda – on the country,’ Hawley said.
The senator warned that the tech industry ‘wants to tell people what you can post, wants to control the news, control what people read and what journalism looks like.’
‘This is really about information control,’ Hawley said.
‘These companies want to do all of that, and they have the power to do all of that, increasingly, and we need to do something about it.’
Hawley said that the Republican Party should lead the way in trying to ‘break companies up.’
‘Facebook currently owns Facebook, but also Instagram, and they also want to have their own currency, or something like it,’ Hawley said.
‘Google owns not just Google search, but Gmail, and all of these other products, and cloud computing services, and they own YouTube.
‘One company should not be allowed to have all of these different platforms,’ Hawley said.
He also mentioned the fact that Amazon, the online retailer, generates significant revenue from its ‘huge cloud computing system’ – Amazon Web Services.
‘They shouldn’t be able to do all of that simultaneously and control so much of the internet,’ Hawley said.
In his interview with Fox News’ Mark Levin, Hawley criticized the decision by Amazon, Apple, and Google to de-platform Parler, the social media app and Twitter competitor that was popular among conservatives and Trump supporters.
Hawley said the move to shut down Parler was ‘anti-American.’
‘That is anti-free speech. It’s anti-First Amendment … and make no mistake, the left is cheering them on,’ the senator said.
‘You hear the Democrats sometimes talk about these companies – they love the power that these companies have,’ the senator added.
‘They love it. They love the power over speech that Facebook and Twitter have, and they want them to do more.’
Last month, Apple said it reached an agreement with Parler that could lead to its reinstatement in the company’s app store. Apple kicked out Parler in January over ties to the deadly January 6 siege on the US Capitol.
In a letter to two Republican lawmakers in Congress, Apple said it has been in ‘substantial conversations’ with Parler over how the company plans to moderate content on its network.
Before its removal from the app store, Parler was a hotbed of hate speech, Nazi imagery, calls for violence (including violence against specific people) and conspiracy theories.
Apple declined to comment beyond the letter, which didn’t provide details on how Parler plans to moderate such content.
In the letter, Apple said Parlor’s proposed changes would lead to approval of the app.
Parler said it has implemented ‘several new safeguards’ designed to detect posts that ‘would not fall within the protections of the First Amendment,’ but added that it did not make broad policy changes.
‘While the App Store version of Parler will prohibit some posts that Parler allows, those posts will still remain visible on the web-based and Android versions of Parler,’ the company said in a statement.
The First Amendment does not apply to private companies such as Parler — it prohibits the government from making laws that impede free speech.
But this has not stopped people from claiming that social media companies violate their free speech rights by moderating content, or from ‘free speech’ apps such as Parler from popping up to fill a perceived void of ‘censorship-free’ discussion sites.
As of midday Sunday, Parler was not yet available in the app store and Apple did not give a timeline for when it will be reinstated.
According to Apple’s letter, Parler proposed changes to its app and how it moderates content. Apple said the updated app incorporating those changes should be available as soon as Parler releases it.
Google also banned Parler from its Google Play store in January, but Parler remains available for Android phones through third-party app stores.
Apple’s closed app system means apps are only available through Apple’s own app store.
Google reiterated its January statement that ‘Parler is welcome back in the Play store once it submits an app that complies with our policies.’
So far, this has not happened.
Parler remains banned from Amazon’s Web Services. Amazon said in January that Parler was unable to moderate a rise in violent content before, during and after the insurrection.
Parler asked a federal judge in Seattle to force Amazon to reinstate it on the web. That effort failed, and the companies are still fighting in court.
Republican political donor Rebekah Mercer has confirmed she helped bankroll Parler and has emerged in recent months as the network’s shadow executive after its founder John Matze was ousted as CEO in February.
Hawley said that liberals in America are using tech companies to circumvent the First Amendment of the Constitution, which prevents the government from passing law infringing on citizens’ freedom of speech.
‘The left wants Facebook to censor more,’ Hawley said.
‘They want Twitter to censor more. They want Google to censor more. So there is a strong alliance between the left wing in this country and these mega-corporations.’
The senator added: ‘The left can achieve with these companies what they could never do with government because the First Amendment would actually stand in the way, thank goodness, if it were government that were explicitly trying to censor us and tell us what we could say.’
However, he went on, ‘when the left uses these mega-monopolies to do it, well, then it’s fine.
‘And that’s why they go out there and say, “Oh, the First Amendment doesn’t apply to Facebook,” “The First Amendment doesn’t apply to Google, so censor away,” and they want to combine the power of government and the power of these corporations.
‘And boy, is that dangerous for free speech.’
Hawley warned that ‘if the American people can’t decide what we want to read and not, if we can’t decide what kind of news we want to see and if we can’t talk about it together, if I’m not allowed to to share what I want to share in terms of [saying] “I think you ought to read this news story, I want to comment on this,” if there’s some censor out there who can effectively shut me down any time I express a contrary view, how is our democracy going to survive?’
Last month, Hawley put forward legislation titled the ‘Bust Up Big Tech Act,’ which would bar internet companies that own search engines or online marketplaces from also hosting their own computing services.
The bill would ban Amazon from selling Amazon-branded products on its own marketplace, which is used by other competitors. It would also prevent Amazon from owning the cloud computing services that other companies rely on for e-commerce.
Hawley said that if the law passed, social media would return to serve in the function that was originally intended.
‘I think if social media were truly social media, if it were really about communicating with each other, forming friend groups – think about Facebook before it introduced the newsfeed and algorithms that try to determine what we see and what we do, try to push advertising at us based on our behavior – before that, I think there could be a great benefit to having social media,’ Hawley said.
Hawley accused Facebook and Twitter of abusing the privacy of their users.
The two companies ‘take our data and personal information without our consent or knowledge, and then they try to use that in order to control what we see, sell stuff to us, and are constantly using artificial intelligence to push stories at us to get us to click on this, to buy that, to read that.’
‘I think that constant manipulation, which has become synonymous now with social media, I think that’s dangerous.
‘I think that’s bad, and I think the government shouldn’t be subsidizing it.’
Hawley said that if the public ‘can get to a place where we’re not being constantly manipulated by the companies, I think there can be great value in that.
‘I would say it is time we take back control over our own social communications from these companies, and practically speaking, people spend less time on the platforms, and do as much of our lives as we can with actual relationships, old fashioned meeting face-to-face, calling, texting,’ Hawley said.
‘But moving off the platforms so that they don’t control every aspect of our lives.’
