Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) will hold a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing Wednesday on Silicon Valley’s censorship practices.
The Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution will hold a hearing on Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. Eastern on “technological censorship and the public discourse.” Cruz, as the subcommittee chair, will preside over the hearing.
Sen. Cruz and many other congressional Republicans criticized Silicon Valley’s censorship practices.
The hearing will host many witnesses from across the political spectrum, including:
- Carlos Monje, director of public policy at Twitter
- Neil Potts, public policy director at Facebook
- Chuck Konzelman, writer and director the pro-life movie Unplanned
- Marilyn Musgrave, vice president of the Susan B. Anthony List
- Robbie Parker, father of a Sandy Hook shooting victim
- Eugene Kontorovich, professor at Antonin Scalia Law School
Large social media companies have inflamed controversy after they banned or blocked many pro-life or conservative accounts within the last few months.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) will also attend the hearing–the Tennessee Republican has served as a vocal critic of big tech censorship and advocated for greater privacy measures in the House. Blackburn has also become a victim of Silicon Valley censorship– in 2017, Twitter censored Blackburn’s pro-life campaign ads during the 2018 midterm elections.
In March, Twitter suspended the official account for the Unplanned movie, which was restored shortly after its suspension.
Twitter locked out Breitbart Texas Editor Brandon Darby after he posted a link to one of his stories about a gruesome beheading that took place just south of the Texas border.
Facebook and Instagram recently blacklisted political commentator Faith Goldy in April as part of Facebook’s larger move to clamp down on alleged “extremist content and organized hate groups.”
Sen. Blackburn has moved to take action against Silicon Valley’s dominant status on the Internet and its potential anticompetitive practices.
Sens. Blackburn and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requesting that it take action on Facebook and Google’s anticompetitive behavior and potential violations of American privacy.
“My hope is that through this bipartisan effort we will shed light on the need to protect competition and online privacy to keep up with the fast pace of changes in technology,” Blackburn said in a statement Tuesday. “Companies like Facebook and Google have transformed society in revolutionary ways and need to recognize that with that power comes the responsibility to secure their online platforms.”
Follow Breitbart News for live coverage and more on Wednesday at 2:30 p.m.
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.