On Wednesday, Wisconsin State Representative Shae Sortwell (R-WI-02) and State Senator Roger Roth (R-WI) introduced three pieces of legislation aimed to protect free speech rights of Wisconsinites on social media.
Read the full storyTag: Big Tech
Twitter Suspends Ohio Senate Candidate J.D. Vance’s Campaign Press Account
Twitter on Tuesday suspended the official press account of Ohio GOP Senate candidate J.D. Vance.
Vance, using his primary account, alleged that Twitter provided no warning or explanation as to why the account was disabled.
Read the full storyChinese-Owned TikTok Overtakes YouTube in US
After former President Donald J. Trump attempted to ban TikTok, a popular video streaming social network, the Chinese-owned company has overtaken Google-owned YouTube in popularity in the United States.
“App users in the UK and US are spending more time on TikTok than on YouTube, a new report suggests,” BBC reported. “Data from app monitoring firm App Annie indicates that average time per user spent on the apps is higher for TikTok, indicating high levels of engagement.”
Read the full storyMichael Patrick Leahy on Narrative Journalism and Big Tech Alliances
Thursday morning on Frist Principles with Phill Kline, host Kline welcomed The Star News Networks CEO and Editor in Chief Michael Patrick Leahy to the phone lines to discuss the changing landscape of journalism and Big Techs’ partnership with social media titans.
Read the full storyApple Delays Launch of Controversial Child Pornography Scanning Tool over Privacy Backlash
Apple is delaying the release of a software update that scans iPhones for child pornography after criticism suggested that the features violated user privacy, the tech giant announced Friday.
“Previously we announced plans for features intended to help protect children from predators who use communication tools to recruit and exploit them and to help limit the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material,” the company said in a statement posted to its website Friday. “Based on feedback from customers, advocacy groups, researchers, and others, we have decided to take additional time over the coming months to collect input and make improvements before releasing these critically important child safety features.”
Read the full storyFacebook’s WhatsApp Hit with $265 Million Fine for Violating Personal Data Laws
European Union regulators imposed a $265 million fine on Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp on Thursday for failing to adequately inform consumers what it did with their data.
The fine, issued by the Data Protection Commission (DPC), related to WhatsApp’s failure to provide consumers with certain information about how it shared their personal data with other Facebook-owned companies, according to the agency’s announcement. This omission by WhatsApp violated the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the EU’s data protection and privacy law governing how tech companies collect and share user information.
Read the full storyMichael Patrick Leahy Explains the ‘Unholy Alliance’ Between Big Tech and Social Media Giants
Thursday morning on First Principles with Phill Kline, host Kline welcomed Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO of The Star News Network and host of The Tennessee Star Report to weigh in on the developing oligopoly of Big Tech and social media giants.
Read the full storyApple and Google Face First Major Challenge to Their App Store Dominance
Apple and Google might change their app store business practices because of a new South Korean law similar to recent legislative efforts by U.S. lawmakers.
The new law would prohibit app stores, including Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store, from forcing developers to use the tech giants’ payment systems, The Wall Street Journal reported. The bill, passed by South Korea’s National Assembly, will become law once signed by President Moon Jae-in.
The Korean bill is similar to a bipartisan bill introduced by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, Amy Klobuchar, and Marsha Blackburn to the U.S. Senate earlier this month that seeks “to promote competition and reduce gatekeeper power in the app economy, increase choice, improve quality, and reduce costs for consumers.” Both bills prevent app stores from requiring the use of their billing systems and take aim at the tech giants’ commission structure.
Read the full storyBig Tech, Woke Finance Crack Down on Flynn, Gateway Pundit, Berenson in Cancel Culture Purge
With national attention riveted over the weekend on two major stories — the frantic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan amid its fall to the Taliban and category 4 Hurricane Ida slamming into the Louisiana coast — Big Tech and woke finance dramatically extended the reach of cancel culture with brazen moves to silence and harass three high-profile voices of political and scientific dissent: independent journalist Alex Berenson, popular conservative news and opinion website The Gateway Pundit, and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
On Saturday, Twitter permanently banned Alex Berenson, who has built a large social media following challenging public health establishment orthodoxy on COVID issues ranging from lockdown to vaccine mandates.
“The account you referenced has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation rules,” a Twitter spokesperson responded to an inquiry from Fox News.
Read the full storyFormer New York Times Journalist Alex Berenson Permanently Suspended by Twitter
Twitter has permanently banned Alex Berenson, a former New York Times journalist who has become a major critic of Big Tech censorship and coronavirus lockdowns and mandates.
Responding to an inquiry from Fox News, where Berenson has been a frequent guest during the pandemic, a spokesperson for Twitter replied that “The account you referenced has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation rules.”
Berenson responded on his Substack page, where he posted a message titled “Goodbye Twitter.”
Read the full storyJanuary 6 Committee Demands 15 Social Media Companies Hand over Records, Documents Tied to Capitol Riot
The House committee probing the Jan. 6 riots is demanding over a dozen social media companies hand over extensive records related to the events at the Capitol.
The Select Committee investigating the Capitol riot sent letters dated Aug. 26 to Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube and Reddit, along with Parler, TikTok, 4chan and seven other social media platforms asking them to provide all documents, data and other information related to the Capitol riot since April 2020.
Read the full storyFacebook Reportedly Considers Creating an Election Commission, Just in Time for Midterms
Facebook is considering creating a commission to advise the tech giant on election-related issues including misinformation, The New York Times reported.
The tech company reportedly contacted several academics and policy experts to draft plans for a commission that will advise Facebook on electoral matters and potentially decide policies related to political misinformation and advertising, several people familiar with the plans told The New York Times. Facebook plans to announce the commission in the next few months to be prepared for the 2022 midterms, the Times reported.
Read the full storyWhile Taliban Flourish on Twitter, Social Media Giants Restrict U.S. Conservative Voices
While the Taliban and Iranian mullahs still enjoy Twitter privileges, a growing number of Americans, mostly of conservative persuasion, face a range of restrictions imposed on their accounts by U.S. social media platforms.
The list of Americans who have seen their social media reach limited is topped by former U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been banned indefinitely on Twitter and for two years on Facebook. More recently, Georgia GOP Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene was temporarily silenced by Twitter.
The firebrand freshman congresswoman was suspended earlier this month for seven days for what Twitter called “misinformation” for arguing COVID-19 masks and vaccines are “failing,” as more fully vaccinated Americans are contracting the virus’s highly contagious delta strain.
Read the full storyPotential Ohio Legislation Aimed at Curbing Social Media Censorship
Social media companies would not be allowed to censor Ohioans from expressing their views without notifying the user and offering an appeal process or risk being sued under a proposed bill.
Rep. Al Cutrona, R-Canfield, said he plans to introduce legislation that prohibits social media platforms from censoring users unless statements violate state or federal law.
Read the full storyBipartisan Bill Targets Apple, Google for App Store Tactics
Senators from both parties introduced a bill Wednesday targeting alleged anticompetitive conduct among Apple and Google app stores.
The Open App Markets Act, introduced Wednesday by Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn along with Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Amy Klobuchar, would prevent app stores such as Google Play and Apple’s App Store from requiring developers to use the tech giants’ in-app payment systems as a condition of distribution. The bill would also stop Apple and Google from taking “punitive action” against developers who offer different pricing terms in other app stores.
“This legislation will tear down coercive anticompetitive walls in the app economy, giving consumers more choices and smaller startup tech companies a fighting chance,” Blumenthal said in a joint statement.
Read the full storyCommentary: Trump and Trump-Backed Candidates Are Major Threats to Democrats
One of the residual effects of last year’s chaotic election is the palpable fear of former President Trump that still haunts the Democrats. Their congressional antics, from the absurd post-election impeachment to the parodic House investigation into the Jan. 6 “insurrection,” confirm that they are still very much afraid of the man they ostensibly defeated last November. This has nothing to do with any threat that Trump or his supporters pose to the republic, as media alarmists insist. The actual source of Democratic trepidation can be found in their lackluster performance in the 2020 presidential and congressional elections combined with Trump’s clear intention to become very much involved in boosting Republicans in next year’s midterms.
First, a reality check concerning the 2020 election: Biden didn’t win a popular vote landslide as the Democrats still claim. According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) totals, he won 81,268,924 of 158,383,403 ballots cast. In other words, 77,114,479 people voted for Trump or one of the third-party candidates. That nearly 49 percent of the voters cast ballots against Biden, despite the unprecedented support he received from the media and Big Tech cannot fail to worry rational Democrats. Nor can they help being unnerved by a poll conducted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) that strongly suggests their anemic 2020 congressional showing portends worse results in 2022.
Read the full storyAssociated Press and Reuters Team Up with Twitter to Patrol Political Dissent as ‘Misinformation’
Two of the largest news publications in the country, the Associated Press (AP) and Reuters, have teamed up with one of the leading tech giants, Twitter, in a new partnership to crack down on “misinformation” and “elevate credible information,” the Daily Caller reports.
Twitter confirmed the new alliance in a blog post, saying that the two publications would be responsible for identifying “misleading” information, and to help Twitter expand its efforts to mediate trending stories, “especially where facts are in dispute.” The websites will also help Twitter staff whenever they lack “sufficient expertise or access to a high enough volume of reputable reporting.”
“This program is just part of our ongoing efforts to help people understand the conversation happening on our service,” the Twitter blog post continued. “People experience a range of public conversations on Twitter every day, and we’re committed to continuing our work to elevate credible information and context.”
Read the full storyCrom Carmichael on Big Tech Censorship, Facebook, and the U.S. Supreme Court
Monday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Crom Carmichael in studio to discuss big tech censorship, federal regulations, and how the US Supreme Court will rule in the Trump lawsuit.
Read the full storyBig Tech Profits Continue to Surge, Latest Earnings Show
Big Tech companies reported massive, record-breaking earnings figures as their sales continued to surge amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Google, Apple, Microsoft and Twitter all beat earnings estimates and showed large revenue growth, executives for the tech companies said during earnings calls Tuesday evening. The four companies’ earnings reports suggested that the growth experienced by Big Tech during the pandemic will continue apace.
“Our long-term investments in AI and Google Cloud are helping us drive significant improvements in everyone’s digital experience,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a statement Tuesday, explaining his company’s strong performance.
Read the full storyCommentary: Break Up Big Tech Before It’s Too Late
With the rise of populist and bipartisan resentment against Big Tech monopolies along with the recent appointment of Big Tech opponent Lina Khan as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, government action against these companies seems imminent. People are waking up to the fact that they have way too much power and are a threat to the American way of life.
As if on cue, prominent conservatives have come to the defense of these monopolies. Most recently, Robert Bork Jr. argued in National Review that breaking up Big Tech would lead to “a slippery slope to the end of capitalism and the rise of political management of the economy.” He agrees with conservatives such as Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who says, “These [anti-monopoly] bills give power to the FTC, the new commissioner we all know is radically left.”
Read the full storyCommentary: Republicans Will Defend Their Corporate Friends but Not Their Voters
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has so many problems to solve right now. A crime wave leaves hundreds of Americans dead and has turned our cities into war zones. A border crisis allows hundreds of thousands of illegals to enter our country. A domestic war on terror threatens basic civil liberties.
But none of these crises have persuaded Graham to go to war. No, the civilizational question that demands his full zeal has to do with . . . a fast-food chain.
Read the full storySenator Hagerty Introduces Bill to End Government-Directed Big Tech Censorship
U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) introduced a bill on Wednesday aimed to limit “government collusion” with Big Tech to censor Americans’ free speech.
“The purpose of the First Amendment is to prevent government from suppressing speech with which it disagrees. If the federal government is attempting to end-run the Constitution by secretly working with tech platforms to censor Americans’ speech, then the American people deserve to know. Requiring transparency will ensure that the government cannot work secretly to censor Americans,” Hagerty detailed of his proposed legislation.
Read the full storyPoll: Majority of Americans Support Regulating, Breaking Up Big Tech
A majority of Americans believe major tech companies are too powerful, and support the government regulating and breaking them up, according to a new poll.
The poll, conducted from June 7 to 12 and released Wednesday by Change Research on behalf of progressive groups CAP Action and Public Citizen, found that 81% of respondents believe Big Tech and social media companies are too powerful, with 73% at least “somewhat convinced” they should be regulated and broken up. Republicans had a less favorable view of tech companies than Democrats and tended to be more supportive of antitrust action.
Read the full storyFCC Commissioner Brendan Carr Pushes for End of Big Tech ‘Corporate Welfare’ in Broadband Funding
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr believes the agency should require Big Tech to fund internet infrastructure, following the introduction last week of a bill mandating the FCC consider collecting contributions from the tech companies.
The Funding Affordable Internet with Reliable (FAIR) Contributions Act, introduced July 21 by Republican Sens. Roger Wicker, Todd Young, and Shelley Moore Capito, instructs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to look into charging major tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Netflix to fund broadband networks. Currently, new internet infrastructure is paid for by the Universal Service Fund (USF), a $9 billion pot of money funded by charges on consumers’ phone service.
Read the full storyAmerica First Policy Institute Establishes Center for Election Integrity
The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) announced on Tuesday that the organization will expand its reach by establishing the Center for Election Integrity (CEI).
“Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, and I’m looking forward to seeing the Center for Election Integrity work in the states to help them strengthen their state election laws and fight for the voting rights of their citizens,” said AFPI President and CEO Brooke Rollins.
Read the full storyBig Tech’s Anti-Terrorism Task Force Adds Far-Right Militias to List of Extremist Groups It Tracks
The tech industry’s anti-terrorism alliance announced Monday it would begin tracking content from far-right organization in a shared counter-terrorism database used by major tech companies.
The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), a non-profit organization founded by Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, will add manifestos, posts and links from far-right militias flagged by U.N. anti-terrorist group Tech Against Terrorism to a shared database, GIFCT told Reuters. The organization will also share content flagged by Five Eyes, a global partnership between intelligence agencies in the U.S. and other countries, Reuters reported.
The database, established in 2017 and shared exclusively by the tech giants, aggregates hashes, or digital signatures, of images, videos and URLs, allowing tech companies to easily remove logged content, according to the GIFCT website. The database was previously focused on content primarily from Islamic terror organizations, according to Reuters.
Read the full storyTennessee Sen. Blackburn: White House Plans to Silence Critics in Run-Up to 2022
Speaking to iHeartRadio host Sara Carter on Thursday, Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn condemned the Biden administration’s professed “flagging” of what it terms “disinformation” regarding COVID-19 for social-media companies.
“What they’ve set up is basically a premise that if your message is not government-approved, then what you’re going to experience is state-sponsored censorship….” Blackburn said.
Read the full storyDemocrats Introduce Bill Holding Tech Companies Liable for ‘Health Misinformation’
Senate Democrats introduced legislation Thursday removing liability protections from online platforms that promote content deemed health misinformation.
The bill, proposed by Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Ben Ray Lujan on Thursday, seeks to carve out an exception from Section 230 liability shields enjoyed by online platforms, such as Facebook or YouTube, if those platforms boost content classified as health misinformation, Vox first reported.
The legislation, known as the Health Misinformation Act, directs the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to create a definition of health misinformation, and strips liability protections from platforms “if the provider promotes that health misinformation through an algorithm used by the provider.” HHS defined health misinformation in an advisory last week as “information that is false, inaccurate, or misleading according to the best available evidence.”
Read the full storySenate Republicans Propose Making Big Tech Pay for Internet Infrastructure
Three Senate Republicans introduced a bill Wednesday requiring the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to consider collecting revenue from major tech companies to fund broadband internet.
The Funding Affordable Internet with Reliable Contributions Act, introduced by Sens. Roger Wicker, Todd Young, and Shelley Moore Capito, directs the FCC to consider collecting Universal Service Fund (USF) contributions from Big Tech companies “such as YouTube, Netflix, and Google,” the lawmakers announced in a statement Wednesday. USF is a subsidy fund of the FCC that dispenses around $10 billion a year for broadband internet infrastructure in rural areas, according to the FCC website.
Read the full storySenator Marsha Blackburn Questions Biden Administration Collaboration With Big Tech
Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) called on the Biden administration to explain the extent of their collaboration with Big Tech companies to censor individuals on social media.
Blackburn’s letter comes after White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki indicated that the administration has worked with Big Tech to limit “misinformation” regarding COVID-19.
Read the full storyHouse Republicans Launch ‘Freedom from Big Tech Caucus’
Republican Reps. Ken Buck and Lance Gooden announced Friday the launch of the Freedom from Big Tech Caucus, a group of House Republicans working towards reining in major tech companies.
The caucus will focus on addressing anticompetitive and monopolistic practices by major tech companies, political censorship, and Big Tech’s relationship with China, Buck and Gooden announced in a statement. The caucus will also include Reps. Madison Cawthorn, Burgess Owens, and Paul Gosar, according to the announcement.
“Big Tech has abused its market power for decades, and Congress must act to hold these companies accountable and preserve the free market, promote competition and innovation, protect the freedom of speech, and foster a thriving digital economy,” Buck said in the statement.
Read the full storyFacebook Working with White House to Censor Content
In a Thursday press conference, Press Secretary to President Joe Biden admitted that the White House is colluding with Facebook to censor content on the social media platform.
“We are in regular touch with the social media platforms and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff and also members of our COVID-19 team — given as Dr. Murthy conveyed, this is a big issue, of misinformation, specifically on the pandemic,” Psaki reportedly said
Read the full storyAkiva Cohen Weighs in on the Probable Outcome of Donald Trump’s Big Tech Lawsuit
Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Big Tech and First Amendment New York Attorney Akiva Cohen to the newsmakers line to explain the mechanics of Former President Trump’s lawsuit.
Read the full storyCommentary: The Battle Against Big Tech Is an Existential Fight for Conservatives
For Big Tech billionaires, these are the best of times, and the worst of times.
Why the best? Because the long arm of social media and online commerce has never reached further and deeper into Americans’ culture, spending habits, lifestyles, and worldview. Likewise, the net worth of these billionaires has risen to undreamed-of heights. COVID was, for tech barons, a blessing in disguise: it trapped Americans indoors, where they could do little else but browse the web, consume digital entertainment, and spend their stimulus dollars on imported Chinese doohickeys. Even as the dreaded virus has retreated, Big Tech has successfully locked in its gains.
Why the worst of times, though? The very rise of Big Tech has portended greater scrutiny. The debasement of Big Tech’s competitors and natural enemies—from brick-and-mortar stores to Trump supporters—has ensured that the drumbeat of criticism of social media companies and online retailers has never been more stridently percussive.
Read the full storyYouTube Deletes Video on Trump’s Big Tech Lawsuit, Blocks His CPAC Speech from the Platform
YouTube deleted the American Conservative Union’s (ACU) video featuring former President Trump announcing his class-action lawsuit against Big Tech, citing an alleged violation of its COVID-19 terms and conditions.
The ACU, which hosts the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), received “a strike” on their account from YouTube on July 9, preventing them from uploading new content for a week. This includes ACU’s CPAC 2021 Part 2 in Dallas, Texas, and Trump’s CPAC speech scheduled for Sunday, the organization said in a statement.
In the deleted YouTube video of Trump’s announcement of a lawsuit against Big Tech, which includes Google, he also cited a medical study on hydroxychloroquine as a therapeutic for COVID-19.
Read the full storyBiden’s Executive Order Targets Big Tech, Urges FCC to Restore Net Neutrality
President Joe Biden is taking aim at Big Tech and Big Telecom’s growing power with a new executive order that will add regulations and facilitate competition within the industries.
The order, which Biden is expected to sign Friday, includes over 70 provisions, all aimed at promoting competition within tech and telecom, both of which have become more monopolistic in recent years.
It encourages the Federal Trade Commission to overhaul its rules regarding personal data collection and bans unfair competition practices online, according to a White House fact sheet. It also calls for more scrutiny when examining potential corporate mergers, especially when a larger corporation acquires a smaller one or when it could affect customers’ privacy or competition within the sector.
Read the full storyBig Tech Alternative CloutHub Announces Autonomy from Social Media Giants
CloutHub, a major social networking alternative to Big Tech giants like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, announced its full autonomy from Silicon Valley.
Along with new features, CloutHub founder and CEO Jeff Brain said the company now hosts its product on its own servers, making it completely independent from Big Tech. Many social media companies rely on Big Tech for hosting services. Amazon is one of the largest hosting services in the world, and has caused trouble for alternative social media sites that used its servers.
Read the full storyCloutHub Founder Jeff Brain Reacts to Trump’s Big Tech Lawsuit
The founder of CloutHub, a free speech social media network, has responded to former President Donald J. Trump’s class action lawsuit against several Silicon Valley titans, which the forty-fifth president announced Wednesday.
“I am pleased that President Trump is fighting back against Big Tech corporations after enduring months of blatant injustices,” Jeff Brain said in press release. “His lawsuit is based on the infringement of his fundamental free speech rights that powerful companies such as Facebook and Twitter imposed based on their own political bias; a bias that has no place with such important keepers of our national public square online.”
Read the full storyAmazon Demands Recusal of Federal Trade Commission Chair from Any Antitrust Investigations
Tech giant Amazon recently demanded that the chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission be recused from any antitrust investigations into the company, according to the Daily Caller.
Amazon filed the petition with the FTC on Wednesday, accusing Chairwoman Lina Khan of being biased due to the fact that she “has, on numerous occasions, argued that Amazon is guilty of antitrust violations and should be broken up.” The petition continued by declaring that “these statements convey to any reasonable observer the clear impression that she has already made up her mind about many material facts relevant to Amazon’s antitrust culpability as well as about the ultimate issue of culpability itself.”
The FTC is already conducting several antitrust investigations, including against Amazon; their most recent efforts are focusing on Amazon’s possible acquisition of the film studio Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), a purchase of nearly $9 billion announced last month.
Read the full storyBig Tech Cracks Down on Robert Malone, mRNA Vaccine Pioneer Who Warns About Their Risks
A scientist who credits himself as the inventor of mRNA vaccines, and has warned that they carry risks downplayed in the COVID-19 pandemic, said this week that LinkedIn “shut down” his personal account without explanation.
“The historic record of what I have done, stated, figured out (and when) etc. over time is a key part of establishing my credibility and track record as a professional,” Robert Malone tweeted Wednesday. “And that has been erased completely and arbitrarily without warning or explanation.”
Read the full storyCongress’ Antitrust Legislation Avoids Regulating Many Big Tech Companies
Last-minute changes to major antitrust legislation working its way through the House appears to exempt several Big Tech companies from being affected by its regulations.
The legislation, which has been months in the making and was crafted to take on Big Tech monopolies, targets a handful of companies while excluding others that also have massive market power, a leading expert told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Existing federal and state antitrust law already prohibits a wide range of anticompetitive business activity across all industries like unlawful mergers and monopolization.
Read the full storyFormer Trump Legal Aide and Visiting Fellow of IWF Law Center May Davis Talks Background and Big Tech
Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed former Trump legal aide and visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum Law Center, May Davis to the newsmakers line to describe her experience and Big Tech legislation.
Read the full storyMicrosoft VP Says It’s ‘Shocking’ How Routinely the Government Secretly Demands Private Customer Data
Federal law enforcement agencies covertly request thousands of Microsoft users’ information every year, a company executive told a congressional committee Wednesday.
Vice President for Customer Security and Trust Tom Burt told the House Judiciary Committee at a hearing on “Secrecy Orders and Prosecuting Leaks: Potential Legislative Responses to
Deter Prosecutorial Abuse of Power” that Microsoft receives between 2,400 and 3,500 secrecy orders a year, or about 7 to 10 a day, from federal law enforcement agencies.
“Most shocking is just how routine secrecy orders have become when law enforcement targets an American’s email, text messages or other sensitive data stored in the cloud,” Burt told the committee.
Read the full storyFederal Judge Blocks Florida Social Media Law
Judge Robert Hinkle sided with two groups that represented tech giants and blocked a Florida law that would have imposed penalties for social media companies that attempt to de-platform or “censor” individuals.
The ruling, a preliminary injunction, will prevent the enactment of the law, which could fine companies as much as $250,000 a day and was scheduled to take effect on July 1.
Read the full storyFacebook Becomes Fifth Tech Company Worth More Than $1 Trillion
Facebook’s market capitalization, or total dollar value, closed above $1 trillion for the first time ever Monday, making it the fifth U.S. company to reach such size.
Facebook exceeded the $1 trillion mark after a year in which the company experienced massive user and earnings growth, CNBC reported. Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon – all fellow Big Tech companies – are the only other U.S. companies that have also surpassed $1 trillion in market capitalization, according to Axios.
Read the full storyWhistleblower Document Appears to Show Microsoft Helped Write Big Tech Bills
Microsoft was given an advance copy of major antitrust legislation, a document given to Republican Rep. Thomas Massie by a whistleblower appeared to show.
The document is the original version of the Platform Competition and Opportunity Act, one of Democrats’ six pending antitrust bills targeting Big Tech, according to Rep. Thomas Massie. Every page of the document, which the Daily Caller News Foundation obtained on Wednesday, is watermarked with the text “CONFIDENTIAL – Microsoft.”
“I just came into possession of a document that everyone needs to know about,” Massie said during the Judiciary Committee markup of the legislation on Wednesday. “It’s marked ‘CONFIDENTIAL – Microsoft.’ A whistleblower provided this. It’s the first draft of one of these bills that would’ve covered Microsoft. This begs the question: did Microsoft have this bill and the other bills that we are voting on today before I had this bill?”
Read the full storyCommentary: Big Tech Only Has Itself to Blame for Republican Rethinking of Antitrust
There are few, if any, political issues that now generate the breadth and intensity of bipartisan backlash as does the rise of Big Tech.
During Donald Trump’s presidency, the major parties largely diverged on their specific grievances against the woke Silicon Valley monopolists who serve as gatekeepers for America’s 21st-century public square. Republicans, by and large, focused on censorship of conservative online speech. Democrats, by contrast, tended to focus on economic concentration; the five American corporations with the largest market caps, for example, are tech behemoths Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google Alphabet, and Facebook. This divergence has stymied efforts to rein in the Big Tech oligarchy on issues such as Section 230, the 1990s-era provision permitting platforms to engage in publisher-like content-moderation decisions without being legally treated as publishers.
Conservatives still have myriad concerns with Big Tech’s noxious brew of speech suppressions, shadow bans, and unaccountable deplatformings. Those concerns are both legitimate and justified by Big Tech’s ever-expanding list of misdeeds. But there is an emerging sea change in the way conservatives conceptualize the relationship between Big Tech’s unfettered content-moderation leeway and the sheer economic clout wielded by the relevant corporate actors.
Read the full storySamantha Fillmore of the Heartland Institute Explains the ‘Asphyxiation of the American Economy’
Thursday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the Heartland Institute’s State Government Relations Manager Samantha Fillmore to the newsmakers line to discuss the calculated stifling of America’s workforce through excessive unemployment legislation.
Read the full storyBiden Lifts Economic Ban on Chinese Military Tech Company
Joe Biden signed an executive order updating the United States’ list of blacklisted Chinese companies, dropping the ban on at least one company that was originally put on the list by President Donald Trump, the Washington Free Beacon reports.
Biden lifted the blacklist on the company Sugon, which was first banned by President Trump in November of 2020. The company is responsible for selling “supercomputers” to the Chinese military, for use in nuclear weapons research. Sugon also specializes in facial recognition software, cloud computing, and other surveillance technology that has been used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) against the Uyghur Muslim population.
Although Biden’s updated list still maintains bans on such companies as Huawei and Hikvision, the removal of Sugon was noted as “strange” by Michael Sobolik, a fellow with the American Foreign Policy Council.
Read the full storySenator Blackburn and Fauci Go Toe-to-Toe Over His Emails and Relationship with Big Tech
Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) challenged Dr. Anthony Fauci this week over his handling of COVID-19 and apparent collusion with Big Tech. Following the mass release of Fauci’s emails through an open records request last week, Blackburn published a video Tuesday to offer some summarized insight on Fauci’s involvement in the COVID-19 outbreak and his email correspondence with Facebook.
“Here are the facts on Fauci that big tech doesn’t want you to know,” tweeted Blackburn.
Read the full story