Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Friday (March 5) offered his views on new legislation aimed at cracking down on censorship of conservative voices by social media companies.
At a news conference, Abbott warned of a “dangerous movement” across the United States to silence conservative ideas and religious beliefs. He accused social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube of censoring speech and fueling the nationwide movement by “picking and choosing which views can be presented.
“Conservative speech will not be done away with in Texas,” the Republican governor said, “and we are seeing that the First Amendment is under attack by social media companies, and that will not be tolerated in Texas.”
“They are controlling the flow of information, sometimes even denying it”, Abbott continued, “Texas will stand up to political censorship by Big Tech and we will not allow it in the Lone Star State.”
Abbott joined Republican State Senator Bryan Hughes in sponsoring Senate Bill 12 (pdf), which would declare social media platforms “public central forums for public debate” and prohibit social media companies from censoring any information based on a user’s opinion or It would prohibit social media companies from blocking, banning, deactivating or otherwise discriminating against any user based on their views or geographic location within the state of Texas.
Hughes said, “This bill would give Texans the right to get back online when they are subjected to this kind of abuse.” He added that “a handful of billionaires” in Silicon Valley should not play “gatekeeper to free speech.
“Freedom of speech is a uniquely American right, isn’t it?” He added, “There’s a right to get things straight and to hear points of view that we may not like because we want the truth and we want to get to the right place. We’re not afraid to debate.”
The bill was referred to the State Affairs Committee on Wednesday. Once approved by the committee, it will need to pass both houses before going to the governor to be signed into law.
The announcement comes a few weeks after Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, also announced he would support a bill aimed at giving users more control over their data.
The proposed legislation, called the Florida Information Protection Act, would require technology companies to explain in detail to users exactly what information is collected and ultimately let them decide whether it can be collected or sold to advertisers for profit.
DeSantis said in a Feb. 15 news release, “In Florida, we’re going to make sure that it’s the consumer who makes the decision, not Silicon Valley or other global companies who are far more concerned about their own profits than they are about your privacy.”
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