MRC President and Founder Brent Bozell lambasted Big Tech executives over their inexplicable failure to take decisive action against sexually exploitative content all while censoring conservatives.
On Thursday, Bozell joined WMAL radio host Larry O’Connor to weigh in on the headline-making testimony from five Big Tech CEOs before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Bozell hailed the bipartisan senators who grilled the executives of TikTok, Snap, Discord, META and X (formerly Twitter) over their reluctance to back legislation that would protect children from being exploited on social media platforms.
“Josh Hawley pointed out something, which is marvelous, which was that Facebook has no problem at all censoring conservatives,” Bozell told O’Connor, later recounting how Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has broadly shielded social media companies from legal liability for criminal acts perpetrated by their users. The senators proposed amending Section 230 to allow victims of exploitative content to file civil lawsuits against Big Tech companies.
There was a “lot of chest-thumping” about Section 230, Bozell said. “If you amended Section 230, you could do it in such a way that they would have all the protections they have right now, provided, provided they did the most basic things stopping sexual exploitation [and] stopping violent crime,” Bozell later added.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, Discord CEO Jason Citron, TikTok CEO Shou Chew and META CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced probing questions from senators on what actions – if any – they have taken to protect children from being potentially introduced to drugs and sexual content online. While the CEOs voiced willingness to back legislation to curb some potentially harmful content, their openness fell short when discussing amendments to Section 230.
“The First Amendment is not all-inclusive,” Bozell said, referring to sexually exploitative content. “If you amended Section 230 to say, ‘We'll give you those, those protections provided you provide free speech with these, these walls that you put up. If you do that, then nothing changes. But if you don't do that, by gum, you lose that 230 protection — and yes, Mark Zuckerberg, you can be sued.’”
Conservatives are under attack! Contact your representatives and demand government agencies and Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
