Gov. Ron DeSantis Announces Legislation Against Big Tech, Blasts Censorship of Hunter Biden Story During Election
Evan James
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Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis has announced his support of legislation that would protect people from “viewpoint discrimination” on Big Tech social media platforms.
“These platforms have played an increasingly decisive role in elections and have negatively impacted Americans who dissent from orthodoxies favored by the Big Tech cartel,” DeSantis said in a speech at the Florida Capitol on Tuesday.
“It’s high time that we step up to the plate to ensure the protection of the people and their rights.”
The legislation has been proposed by Florida Republicans and will attempt to accomplish the following:
1. Require platforms to provide “proper notice and disclosure” of changes to policies, e.g., terms of service, community guidelines, etc.
2. Prevent platforms from unequally applying and hastily changing such policies.
3. Require transparency on actions taken against people’s accounts for policy violations.
4. Allow users to opt out of algorithms that deliberately “steer or suppress content.”
5. Slap an accruing fine on a company if they deplatform a candidate for elected office during an election. The fine would be $100,000 a day until they restore the candidate’s account.
In addition, the legislation hopes to allow users to have legal recourse in case a Big Tech platform violates “the requirements of Florida law” and to “empower [the] Attorney General to take action against a technology company for violations under Florida’s Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act.”
Not only did Gov. DeSantis’ speech cover the proposed legislation, he also went after the mainstream media for their radio silence on the Hunter Biden story toward the end of the 2020 presidential election, which Twitter tried to suppress as “disinformation” and a “conspiracy theory.”
“[The] Hunter Biden story was true, okay? We now know it was true,” DeSantis said. “And the typical corporate media outlets, they just chose to ignore it. Obviously they wanted to beat Trump. They had a view on the election; they didn’t want to give it any air. So we rely on social media to go around that, not let corporate legacy media outlets control the discourse and let us speak.”
Mentioning the mid-October New York Post article about Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian energy executive that was suppressed and led to the Post’s Twitter account being locked for days on end, DeSantis continued: “What they said at the time: ‘Oh, it’s a conspiracy’ or ‘It’s based on hacked information.’ Are you kidding me? You’re trying to tell me if there was hacked information that could damage me, you guys wouldn’t print it? Give me a break. You can whiz on my leg, but don’t tell me it’s raining.”
.@GovRonDeSantis Calling Out Journalists Defending Big Tech & The Censorship Of Hunter Biden Story: “You're trying to tell me if there was hacked information that could damage me, you wouldn't print it? Give me a break. You can whiz on my leg, but don’t tell me it’s raining." 5/ pic.twitter.com/6psMF0UJ0e
— The Columbia Bugle ???????? (@ColumbiaBugle) February 2, 2021
DeSantis sure has been making a solid name for himself over the past several months. He may very well be the populist wing of the GOP’s preferred presidential candidate by 2024.
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