ORLANDO, Florida — Reigning in Big Tech is one of the most important issues Americans can relay to their representatives, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview during the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
Nunes detailed the warning outlined in his book Countdown to Socialism, explaining that he wrote it as a caution to people who say “this really can’t happen” in our country. But he said he has observed it his entire life, watching the left moving from a labor party to a radical party in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
“When I was a kid, it was this radical ‘in the name of the environment’ [movement]. [It] became a radical green movement,” he explained. “And we were used in my area, the agricultural area of California, we were used as the guinea pigs where they would come in and build narratives so that ‘oh we’re just trying to save this little creature from these evil corporate people who are cutting down these trees and it’s causing fires… It was all fake news.'”
The challenge now, he said, is a bit different due to the power of Big Tech, which largely controls the narratives. But decades ago, the late Rush Limbaugh, Nunes said, largely broke the information barrier after essentially taking over AM radio.
“Everybody tuned in because they’re like, wow. I’m hearing things I haven’t heard before, and I’m not hearing these things on the news. And so he was kind of there before the creation of the web,” he said, briefly walking through how former President Trump utilized social media during his 2016 campaign.
“He was able to get above and beyond the traditional legacy, fake news media complex and he was able to, you know, get his information out and reach his voters through things like Facebook Live. And then, of course, right after that, the crackdown occurred and it began. People think that Donald Trump made up the term fake news. It wasn’t. It was Zuckerberg and Obama. [They] are the first ones that I can find that actually made up the term fake news.”
After that, Google and the other tech “oligarchs” opted to crack down on censorship even further, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee explained.
“So then Google and the other oligarchs got in and they said ‘OK We’re going to censor places like Breitbart,'” he said.
“They build the narrative. They promote the narrative. People that just want to be out there doing their thing and, you know, taking their kids to soccer practice or what have you, they’re just deluged with, on their devices, with all this garbage and they don’t ever get to see what real investigative work is, like what Breitbart tries to do, what Project Veritas tries to do in terms of holding these people accountable,” Nunes said, admitting that Big Tech went “far beyond” where he ever thought they would go in engaging in censorship.
Noting the similarities to “some of the old Soviet dictators,” Nunes told Breitbart News:
I knew they would shadow ban people on these sites, but I never knew that they would actually eliminate a company from a platform. Apple had so far stayed out of this fight, but you know, now they eliminated a company, essentially. They destroyed them. And Amazon. So there’s nothing these oligarchs won’t do now, so we’re really in a situation. It’s much like California but much bigger where you have a politburo type system where you have people who don’t even have to run for office, like Biden who just hid in his basement. Harris couldn’t even win a primary. She couldn’t even get tenth place in a primary, so she had to drop out.
“They were just kind of propped up and you see that where, you know, Biden maybe makes a — talks to people what? A couple times a week?”
When asked how conservatives can push back on Big Tech, particularly prior to the next election, Nunes stressed the time to fight is “right now.”
“You cannot win a battle for ideas if you have no communications architecture. Right now, we’re relegated to the ghetto… on the internet,” Nunes said, explaining that he has to go directly to websites, such as Breitbart News, in order to get the news because he knows he is not going to see it otherwise.
“I’m sure apps are going to get canceled, and everything else, so that’s not going to work. You can’t win a battle for ideas if you have no way to really communicate with one another and promote your ideas out there to the public,” he said.
People need to make sure their representatives know the “most important issue is to reign in these tech oligarchs and for us to get a social media platform out there that where we can communicate our ideas,” Nunes said, warning it is “going to be really tough to win in the future” if conservatives do not do so.
Actions can also be taken at the state level to combat Big Tech, the California Republican added, highlighting the Big Tech crackdown Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) recently previewed for the Sunshine State:
Then secondly at the state level, it’s not just the federal level. It’s also the state level, and we heard Governor DeSantis here in Florida say it, that if any of these big tech oligarchs censor, they’re going to pass legislation where they’re going to fine by the day if they eliminate political people from their state.
“That’s going to be interesting to watch, and hopefully other states will replicate that because look, you’re not going to reign these guys in,” Nunes added. “These guys are bigger; these big tech companies are bigger than most countries.”
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.