Big Tech

Today in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) questioned Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, Twitter whistleblower and former head of security for Twitter, who revealed that over 4,000 Twitter engineers have access to user data, including geolocation data, that could be used to dox users. 

Mr. Zatko also revealed that Twitter engineers have the ability to “tweet as anybody” and may have done so. 

"That is a significant concern, 4,000 people with the ability to dox individual...

Today U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission calling for an investigation into Amazon’s planned acquisition of 1Life Healthcare, a medical company that oversees an extensive network of primary care providers. If allowed to go forward, this transaction will give Amazon access to a healthcare practice operating more than 180 medical offices throughout the United States.

“This particular acquisition, if allowed to proceed, would represent an alarming new...

The ACCESS Act will require the largest social media companies to make data portable and services interoperable 

U.S. Senators Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), and a group of bipartisan colleagues recently reintroduced the Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching (ACCESS) Act.This bipartisan legislation encourages market-based competition to dominant social media platforms by requiring that the largest companies make user data portable – and their services...

Today U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas expressing deep concern about the agency's new Disinformation Governance Board and demanding it be dissolved. Senator Hawley cited as a particular concern DHS’s appointment of Nina Jankowicz, an anti-free speech activist with a long history of partisan attacks, to lead the board.

"I confess, I at first thought this announcement was satire. Surely no American Administration would ever use...

Today U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) sent a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, demanding explanations for a recent academic study finding filtering that Gmail's spam filtering algorithm was significantly more likely to mark Republican fundraising emails as spam than Democrat fundraising emails. The letter comes amid ongoing debates over free speech around the sale of tech giant Twitter and censorship issues that have persisted in the tech industry for years.

In his letter to Google, Senator...

Today U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) sent a letter to Twitter's new owner, Elon Musk, calling for a comprehensive public audit of Twitter's past censorship practices.

Senator Hawley writes, "In recent years, Twitter has intervened in American discourse with an increasingly heavy hand, attempting to shape the information environment for overtly partisan reasons. Algorithms didn’t make those calls; employees did. And at this point, the American people deserve to know the truth about what went...

U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and a bipartisan group of Senate colleagues led by Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) will introduce a new bill to crack down on Big Tech monopolies that abuse their power to favor their own products. 

The American Innovation and Choice Online Act will set clear rules to protect small businesses on dominant platforms and strengthen the ability of antitrust enforcers to hold such platforms accountable.

Senator Hawley said, “For too long...

Today U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced new legislation to make social media companies liable for bodily or mental harm their products cause to children. Senator Hawley’s bill would close the Section 230 loophole protecting these companies and allow parents to sue and obtain damages from social media companies wholly or partly responsible for harm to users under 16.

Senator Hawley said, “Facebook has long had evidence of the harmful effects their products have on children but covered...