Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said the technology industry’s problems “are out of control,” before warning that no company is too big to regulate, in an article for Fox News, Tuesday.
“2018 is proving to be the year tech finally lost its innocence. Uber’s self-driving cars hit people; Amazon’s Echo listens in on your private conversations; and Facebook has had more scandals than we can track. The tech industry’s problems are out of control,” declared Blackburn. “My Tennessee constituents have expressed concern over having their Christian movie trailers taken off YouTube, or their Facebook accounts being disabled, or their posts on Twitter being censored. As I said, I had a personal experience with the latter this last fall, and it was deeply troubling.”
Blackburn then continued to note a number of recent tech controversies, including Google listing of the California GOP as a Nazi organization, before warning, “Anyone who thinks they are ‘too big to regulate’ might want to put a call into Microsoft headquarters before it’s too late.”
This month, Blackburn called for regulation of social media companies in response to censorship and user privacy concerns, while in March, Blackburn claimed, “Silicon Valley elites are trying to impose their values” on Americans.
“Free speech, as a value, is endangered even here in America, and is nonexistent in most of the world,” expressed Blackburn to the House Judiciary Committee in April. “We need to recognize that the global reach of these companies creates overwhelming pressure against free speech, and we need to do a much better job counteracting that pressure.”
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington, or like his page at Facebook.