Big Tech companies inclined to buckle to foreign censorship demands must consider a new grave warning from Andrew N. Ferguson, the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission.
Ferguson wrote letters to over a dozen Big Tech companies warning them against undermining Americans’ privacy and free speech rights to appease foreign governments.
An FTC press release noted that pressure and demands from foreign governments might tempt Big Tech to attack free speech in a way that would harm Americans’ rights, and that this is unacceptable.
“I am concerned that these actions by foreign powers to impose censorship and weaken end-to-end encryption will erode Americans’ freedoms and subject them to myriad harms, such as surveillance by foreign governments and an increased risk of identity theft and fraud,” Ferguson wrote in the letters.
Ferguson noted that the European Union’s Digital Services Act and the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act are among the laws hat have influenced Big Tech pressures on free speech around the globe.
The FTC has brought dozens of cases against companies that failed to protect their consumers, Ferguson warned, adding that the agency will continue to take appropriate action to protect the safety and rights of Americans.
Multiple foreign governments are currently attempting to pressure Big Tech into censoring speech. Brazil’s Justice Alexandre de Moraes has been taken to court a second time in Florida by Rumble and Truth Social over his orders to censor Brazilian dissidents. Last month, France launched a criminal investigation into X, reportedly over algorithm manipulation, but X denies the allegations.
Conservatives are under attack! Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
