Florida Gov. DeSantis Takes on Big Tech: Proposes Fines for Censorship

AP Photo/Lynne Sladky

The Biden administration clearly benefitted from Big Tech censorship in the weeks before the election. Twitter and Facebook actively censored the NY Post’s report on Hunter Biden’s dealings with China, preventing millions of voters from learning true and important information about one of the two contenders for the presidency. Twitter and Facebook have never censored accusations that Donald Trump conspired with Russia to steal the 2016 election, even after those accusations have been proven totally false.

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That’s not the primary reason there needs to be pushback on Facebook and Twitter censorship, but it helps explain why Biden and the Democratic Party will do nothing to stop it. They benefit from it. Their enemies are hurt by it.

If there is to be pushback it will have to come from the states.

A lawmaker in North Dakota is proposing a law that would allow people to sue the social media giants for censoring them.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida legislature are working on a proposal similar to the one Poland is considering. It would impose fines on the censorious wokes in Big Tech.

A new proposal expected to be filed Tuesday would prohibit companies from suspending the account of a political candidate and be subject to a fine of $100,000 for each day the account of a statewide candidate is blocked, or $10,000 a day for other office seekers.

The proposal would also allow consumers to sue if they have been treated unfairly and would authorize the state attorney general to take on the country’s largest tech companies because of anti-competitive practices. Social media companies would be required to reveal how they became aware of any content they censor.

Poland Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki says the social media giants are behaving as if they are “above the law.”

Our First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly are under the most serious threat in a century. Just about every day comes a new report of Big Tech censoring everyday Americans, for little or no reason.

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To those who insist that they’re private companies and can therefore do what they want, there’s relevant case law that says otherwise. In Marsh vs. Alabama (1946) the United States Supreme Court held that companies that effectively own public space cannot censor views they happen to disagree with. That case involved physical public space owned by a corporate giant. In 2021, the public space is in cyberspace but the principle is the same: Big Tech isn’t above the law or the Constitution.

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