Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas) has joined conservative counterparts like freshman Rep. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) in threatening action against “Big Tech.” Unlike Democratic counterparts, who at least pretend their impulses are based on concern for concrete issues, Cruz and company seem to have no problem revealing the self-serving, corrupt, authoritarian nature of their proposals.
Hawley’s whole thing has been pushing social media regulation and free speech crackdowns based on his belief that a few big online companies have shown bias toward ordinary conservative users. Cruz is taking a less populist route, harping on how much money tech executives donated to Democrats versus Republicans and whether any of them voted for Dear Leader.
In a congressional hearing yesterday, Cruz grilled a Google executive on whether any of her colleagues had voted for Trump and whether any of them had donated to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. As a lot of folks have pointed out, this smacks of some super-corrupt and fascistic operating.
“I’m going to use the heavy hand of the government to break up your company because none of your senior executives voted for my party” is a pretty authoritarian approach for a self-proclaimed proponent of limited government, @TedCruz https://t.co/AfN7VJVK6q
— Dan King (@Kinger_Liberty) June 26, 2019
Tea Party-era Ted Cruz would’ve flipped his shit over this stuff. But like most of that formerly free-market promoting crew, he’s now perfectly content to promote MAGA socialism and pretend there’s nothing to see here.
In case you thought this was about principles. https://t.co/gjlbBzjRZv
— Jim Swift (@JimSwiftDC) June 26, 2019
Meanwhile, Sen. Mark Warner (D–Va.)—whom you might remember from his absolutely insane leaked internet proposal last summer—and Hawley have teamed up on a weird, unworkable, ignorant-of-reality scheme to make tech companies tell every individual user what their personal data “is worth.”
Sen. John Thune (R–S.D.) wants to micromanage how search engines and web platforms display content, requiring them to offer algorithm-free experiences. And Hawaii Democrat Sen. Brian Schatz suggested companies should face “legal and financial responsibility” when Washington doesn’t like the algorithms they use.
QUICK HITS
- San Francisco just banned all e-cigarettes, becoming the first city in the U.S. to do so.
- A heart-wrenching photo of a migrant father and his toddler daughter who drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande river into Brownsville, Texas, is a stark reminder of how perilous the journey north is for Central American migrants and the desperation that compels them to risk it.
- Tiffany Cabán, a self-identified “queer, Latina career public defender” who supports sex work and marijuana decriminalization, wants major criminal justice reforms, and is running to be district attorney of Queens, New York, just won the Democratic primary there.
- The National Rifle Association has canceled its NRATV program.
- Another documentary about sex trafficking has been revealed to be totally fraudulent.
- British anti-sex nutjobs are going around filming strippers and then releasing the video publicly—you know, to “save” them.
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