Following Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s recent offer to purchase social media giant Twitter in order to restore free speech across the platform, U.S. congressional candidate and state Rep. Anthony Sabatini (R-FL) accused the left of only supporting free speech “they agree with” while “freaking out” over the possibility of free speech on the right, claiming they are “having an absolute mental breakdown” over Musk’s move.
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News on Thursday, Florida Rep. Anthony Sabatini (R-Howey-in-the-Hills) explained the power that lay behind Big Tech platforms after Musk reportedly offered to buy 100 percent of Twitter stock.
“Republicans will never have real power in this country as long as Big Tech continues its hegemonic dominance in the country and our political sphere mainly,” he said. “So it’s important we do everything we can to fight it.”
He then listed those steps that could be taken to fight back.
“I think there are some important legal things we need to do like pushing forward common-carrier legislation, yanking section 230 protection for these companies and of course going as far as breaking up Big Tech into smaller independent pieces. I think that’s an important step to take.
“But I think there are other asymmetric things we need to be encouraging, including getting conservatives to come up with alternatives to these dominant sites,” he added.
Sabatini expressed approval for Musk’s offer, adding it could prove a “major step” in the struggle for free speech.
“Of course, it’s great to see what Elon Musk is doing,” he said. “This is just like an anomaly — if we could have really a purist free speech advocate just simply outright buy one of these companies, which is sort of unimaginable, that’s also really a major step forward in restoring free speech in this country.”
“But there are other things we need to be doing legally in the meantime,” he added.
Asked why he thought liberals were concerned over Musk’s possible Twitter purchase, Sabatini pointed to the fear over right wing sentiment resonating with Americans.
“Because the left knows when you have free speech conservatives benefit from that, people hear the message from the right, from the America First populist movement, and common sense America First ideas resonate with the American people,” he said.
“So what they had to do is cut off the flow of information,” he added.
Sabatini also claimed liberals “really hate free speech.”
“They think free speech is truly the biggest problem in America today – that people are able to say what they want, think what they want to, feel what they want,” he said.
The Florida Republican accused the left of intimidating people to adopt the “correct” opinions.
“If you don’t have the ‘correct’ views, ‘correct’ opinions — politically correct, that is their version of correct — then you’re in for a dangerous spot,” he said. “We’re going in a dangerous direction, so it’s just it’s a power game.”
Attributing former President Donald Trump’s 2016 victory to “a free flow of information,” Sabatini expressed his belief there was “massive, massive election interference.”
“I think the 2020 election was stolen but I also think it would’ve been impossible for them to steal it if Big Tech did not play the role it played independent of everything else that happened regarding the election,” he said.
“So, I think when you have a free speech culture in the country again, Big Tech stepping out of the way, I think Donald Trump-affiliated candidates are going to surge,” he added.
He then accused Big tech of being “the biggest interference in American elections in the country today.”
“The left is freaking out because we’re going back to 2016 when people could talk openly about Clinton corruption etc. like they were not able to do in the 2020 election, where things were shadow banned, taken down and removed and distorted,” he said.
“The things the left always accuse others of are the exact practices in which they are engaged,” he added. “And in this case manipulation and choking off of information is what they are engaged in.”
According to Sabatini, Big Tech “has a stranglehold on information and it actually uses a chilling effect — it has a way of chilling free speech because people think they might get thrown off if they say this or if they distribute this piece of information.”
“So people end up self-censoring based on the power and prior evil acts of Big tech,” he said. “This is what helps the left win on a multitude of different issues.”
As a result, now that “they know there is the potential that Elon Musk can buy Twitter and restore free speech and give everyone a viewpoint, they know they have a lot to lose,” he said, “and that’s why they are having an absolute mental breakdown over this.”
Such a move on the part of Musk, he claimed, has the potential “to be a massive seismic event to happen in politics in years.”
“If you think about it, people underestimate what Twitter really is,” he said. “Twitter is the centrifuge — it’s like the major conduit to a lot of the most important ‘correct’ opinions, and so by controlling it, you’re controlling information flow in every industry, any kind of a determinative industry in the world, whether it be politics or economy or whatever,” he said.
“And this is like a hostile takeover, it’s pretty interesting,” he added.
Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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