Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has warned several technology giants that they will face serious consequences if they infringe on the privacy of Florida residents or interfere with voters’ access to candidates in future elections.
At a press conference Tuesday (Feb. 2), Florida Gov. DeSantis criticized tech companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google for manipulating information on their platforms and censoring information from citizens.
“Floridians deserve to have the security of enjoying data information and personal information, unrestricted participation in online platforms and, more importantly, they should not be interfered with by tech giants so they can freely participate in election campaigns,” he said.
Under a new Florida law, if a candidate is restricted on a tech company’s social media platform during an election, the company will be subject to a $100,000 per day fine until the social platform reinstates the candidate’s account. In addition, according to the Florida Election Commission, if a company publicly supports one candidate and opposes another, this constitutes an act of political campaign contribution.
The Florida Unfair, Fraudulent Transactions Act also requires that technology companies give customers advance notice before closing a user’s account or modifying rules. In addition, the Florida Attorney General will have the authority to take action to restrain or oppose misconduct by technology companies.
DeSantis said, “These online platforms are supposed to be neutral, allowing Americans’ freedom of expression to be fully demonstrated. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case, and these platforms seem to be playing a decisive role in the election, hurting Americans in turn.”
DeSantis also said that censorship of speech by tech giants is unacceptable and showed an unusual tendency during the presidential election, “For Parler, a social media outlet that refused to censor content, Amazon even removed its servers. With more than 28 million Americans downloading and installing Parler and using it to connect with friends, Family and colleagues, what does Amazon, Google and Apple’s crackdown on Parler mean?!”
The governor said big tech companies are recklessly changing the rules to make them favorable to themselves while suppressing American citizens. He called for a public debate on the speech-censorship practices of these tech giants.
Florida State House Speaker Chris Sprowls said five tech companies – Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon and Apple – are “five members of a dark family” and that “in Florida, we will not allow darkness to exist, we will bring light to Floridians, and these companies will not do whatever they want in Florida.”
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