AEP Response to the House Judiciary Republican Agenda for Taking on Big Tech

AEP’s President, Robert H. Bork, Jr.: 

July 7, 2021

What’s been needed all along is a way to protect conservative speech on social media without resorting to a punitive antitrust regime that would put all business under the thumb of Lina Khan and her ilk.

Jim Jordan and House Republicans responded this week with legislation that consolidates antitrust enforcement in the Department of Justice, where professional lawyers follow the law. 

House Republicans would fix the content cancellation crisis by updating Section 230, which would require more of the social media companies in exchange for their liability protections. Facebook, Twitter, Google and other companies would have to be more transparent and precise about their content policies. They would have to adhere to objective standards and announce their reasoning in public for a given cancellation. And conservatives and other silenced groups would have a cause of action in court.

I haven’t read the details of this legislation yet, so I can’t speak to any possible long-term unintended consequences. But this general approach is the right one. I hope Republicans in the Senate are listening.

Read the full GOP agenda here.