Cruz: Facebook, Big Tech ‘Operating as an Extension of the U.S. Government’

On this week’s broadcast of FNC’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was asked by host Maria Bartiromo if he thought National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci had committed perjury on questions of gain-of-function research when testifying before a U.S. Senate committee.

Cruz said it appeared to be the case but added that the issue of Big Tech acting in concert with the U.S. government was also an area of concern.

“It sure looks like it,” he replied on the perjury question. “He looked at Rand Paul’s eyes and told a flat-out falsehood. And, unfortunately, this has been a pattern with Dr. Fauci, that what he says on Monday somehow isn’t the same as what he says on Tuesday. But don’t worry, what he says on Wednesday is almost certain to be different. And I got to say this email dump that came out makes clear that this is not just being sloppy. It is systematic, and it is systematically an effort to mislead the American people.”

“And, as you noted, he wasn’t doing it alone, but he was doing with much of the U.S. government behind him, and with Facebook and big tech operating as an extension of the U.S. government in order to silence any views that disagreed not with the science, because he wasn’t looking for the science,” Fauci continued. “He was suppressing the science, but, rather, trying to silence anything that disagreed with a political narrative that was convenient that he was pushing at that moment.”

According to Cruz, given Big Tech, including Facebook, is working with the federal government, the government-protected monopoly it enjoys should be examined.

“Unfortunately, I don’t expect the Biden administration will do anything to hold them to account,” he said. “But these latest breakthroughs have real consequence, because it now is clear that Facebook was operating at the direction of and in the direct benefit of the federal government, and operating as the government censor, utilizing their monopoly position to censor on behalf of the government. Maria, that’s a very dangerous admission that is now out there for Facebook, because it means anybody in the country or anybody in the world whose statements, whose speech was censored by Facebook, if you went out and posted the facts that led a year ago to the very strong likelihood that the COVID virus escaped from a Chinese government lab in Wuhan, China, if you posted that a year ago, and they took it down, I think there’s a very good argument you have a cause of action against Facebook.”

“And Facebook would ordinarily say, we’re a private company, we’re not liable,” Cruz added. “Well, you know what? When they act at the behest of the government, when they contact Fauci when they say, should we censor this, and Fauci says yes, and they censor it for the federal government, and then, magically, when the government changes its mind and said, oh, all those facts that were there a year ago, now you’re allowed to talk about it, they stop censoring it with a flip of a switch, that lays a very strong argument that Facebook is operating as a state agency. And that opens very significant legal liability.”

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