Big Tech

Today Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), along with Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), and Mike Braun (R-Ind.), sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg criticizing the social media company’s recent "independent fact check," false rating, and subsequent censorship of pro-life organization Live Action. In the letter, the Senators note that Facebook’s "independent fact check" was conducted by abortion rights activists who no reasonable person could consider neutral or objective...

”I was proud to launch the first antitrust and privacy investigation of Big Tech by an attorney general two years ago. I’m heartened to see a new group of attorneys general with the courage to stand up to these powerful companies and fight for citizens. Big Tech companies should be held accountable if they are violating our privacy or harming our children or killing innovation.”

Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) released the following statement in response to Facebook’s conservative bias audit: “Merely asking somebody to listen to conservatives’ concerns isn’t an ‘audit,’ it’s a smokescreen disguised as a solution. Facebook should conduct an actual audit by giving a trusted third party access to its algorithm, its key documents, and its content moderation protocols. Then Facebook should release the results to the public.” 

Senator Hawley said, “Big tech has embraced a business model of addiction. Too much of the ‘innovation’ in this space is designed not to create better products, but to capture more attention by using psychological tricks that make it difficult to look away. This legislation will put an end to that and encourage true innovation by tech companies.”

Today during a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) grilled Google’s vice president for government affairs and public policy, Karan Bhatia, on a range of subjects including Google’s work on censored search engines in China, YouTube’s curation of content for pedophiles, and whether Google would commit to an independent third-party audit of its content moderation practices.

Today U.S. Senators Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to use its section 6(b) authority to investigate how major tech companies curate content due to the “enormous influence” these companies hold over speech and the “alarming and endless” possibilities for abuse.

Senator Hawley said, “And that’s why we need to step up now, and I think we need to say to them, here’s the deal – Google, Facebook Twitter, they’ve gotten these special deals from government. They’ve gotten a special giveaway from government. They’re treated unlike anybody else. If they want to keep their special deal, here’s the bargain: they have to quit discriminating against conservatives. You agree with that? No more. No more discrimination. It’s that simple. That’s all were asking for.”

Today in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing called Protecting Innocence in a Digital World, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) called out YouTube for prioritizing ad revenue over children’s safety. Senator Hawley discussed the legislation he introduced to ban video-hosting websites like YouTube from automatically recommending videos of children. Hawley’s legislation followed The New York Times reporting that YouTube’s algorithm automatically curates home videos of children for pedophiles. “This...

“When a big tech company says its product is free, consumers are the ones being sold. These ‘free’ products track everything we do so tech companies can sell our information to the highest bidder and use it to target us with creepy ads,” said Sen. Hawley. “Even worse, tech companies do their best to hide how much consumer data is worth and to whom it is sold. This bipartisan legislation gives consumers control of their data and will show them how much these ‘free’ services actually cost.”

Sen. Hawley’s legislation removes the immunity big tech companies receive under Section 230 unless they submit to an external audit that proves by clear and convincing evidence that their algorithms and content-removal practices are politically neutral. Sen. Hawley’s legislation does not apply to small and medium-sized tech companies. “With Section 230, tech companies get a sweetheart deal that no other industry enjoys: complete exemption from traditional publisher liability in exchange for providing a forum free of political censorship,” said Sen. Hawley. “Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, big tech has failed to hold up its end of the bargain.