Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said Sunday (Feb. 7) that he is working with Texas state lawmakers on a bill to prevent technology giants from restricting users’ content based on their political views.
“We’re working with Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Texas) on legislation to prevent social media companies like Facebook and Twitter from eliminating conservative speech.” Abbott said in a statement on Twitter.
The Texas governor’s statement follows legislative action in Florida to punish social media companies that restrict candidates’ use of the platform during elections. Florida’s proposed new law would impose fines of $100,000 per day on offending companies until candidates regain access to the platform.
Florida would also require companies that promote specific candidates to record those endorsement actions with the state Board of Elections and as political campaign contributions.
Several states are already taking steps to protect free speech by preventing Silicon Valley companies from using their power to regulate speech with which they disagree. The tech companies have been repeatedly criticized for their perceived political bias and allegedly unbalanced regulation of user content.
Critics argue that most of the companies’ regulation over the past year has focused on conservative speech and the personal speech of former President Trump‘s (R-Texas) supporters.
Hughes, a Republican, told Inside Texas Politics that the bill he and Abbott intend to introduce would address any unbalanced regulation of users by social media companies, such as Twitter and Facebook.
“Federal law does allow us to regulate these companies, so the bill that we’re going to introduce shows that if a company discriminates against you, if the platform restricts you or kicks you out because of that based on your personal views, or based on discrimination against political or religious views, the law will allow you to get back online.” Hughes said.
Google (Google), Facebook and Twitter did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
On the same day, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also confirmed that Texas will take further steps to address Big Tech censorship, adding that the state has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google since last December.
“Thank you to Gov. Ron DeSantis for doing that, and I’m very encouraged by what he’s doing in Florida,” Paxton said in an interview with Fox Business News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” program. “We’ve started that, too. We have a lawsuit against Google.”
Paxton added that the lawsuit “focuses on the issues of their monopoly, how they abuse consumers, how they get private information and make billions of dollars with that information. Meanwhile, consumers don’t know how their private information is going to be used and they’re not being paid for it.”
“So, yes, I think you’re going to see a lot more litigation in Texas in the coming months and the coming years because if we don’t do something about it now, it may be too late in the future for these companies to have such a powerful dominant position and money.” He added.
Paxton spearheaded a multi-state lawsuit against Google, alleging that the tech giant violated multiple federal and state antitrust, consumer protection laws. The lawsuit alleges that Google engaged in false, misleading and deceptive practices in the sale, purchase and auction of online advertisements.
Trump and his Justice Department have repeatedly urged Congress to roll back Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), saying the provision gives big tech companies room to skirt liability when engaging in content censorship or political behavior.
They accused the companies of acting like publishers rather than online platforms when it comes to targeted regulation of user content. The protections provided by Section 230 are not designed to protect publishers.
Meanwhile, the push to eliminate Section 230 has been met with pushback from tech groups.
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