Republicans Introduce Plan To Allow Users To Sue Big Tech Platforms Over Censorship

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee are proposing a plan to regulate tech giants, including permitting users who have been censored to sue the Big Tech companies, which they call “monopolies.”

House Republican members of the committee assert in a news release about the plan that “Big Tech is out to get conservatives.”

If passed, the proposed plan, which is designed to lay the groundwork for future law and focuses on accountability and transparency, may have major ramifications for major web companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google.

“Today, House Judiciary Republicans released their agenda to hold Big Tech accountable. This agenda presents specific proposals that will speed up and strengthen antitrust enforcement, hold Big Tech accountable for its censorship, and increase transparency around Big Tech’s decisions,” the committee members added.

Republican lawmakers want to overhaul tech companies’ liability protection granted under Section 230 of the Communications Act because social media platforms, for example, have “exploited this protection to make subjective content moderation decisions, often in a manner harmful to conservative voices.”

“Our plan accelerates overdue antitrust scrutiny. The laws currently on the books can and should be used to break up Big Tech. The problem has been, however, that these actions take too long and they allow companies years of legal maneuvering,” the Republicans wrote.

Steps have been outlined to speed up the process and “incentivize robust challenges” to the dominance of the tech platforms, as GOP lawmakers seek cases concerning antitrust laws in order to expedited trial consideration. Such cases would be permitted to directly appeal to the Supreme Court, instead of going through a lengthy process of going through appellate courts.

Moreover, each state’s attorney general would be allowed to use the same “fast-track procedures available to the federal government so that they will be on equal footing in their cases.”

But the lawmakers also propose that Americans who feel mistreated by Big Tech companies, or, subjected to “unlawful censorship,” can “directly challenge Big Tech in court.”

House Republican members of the Judiciary Committee said, “It is wrong that these platforms control and censor speech with impunity. But it is nearly impossible for Americans to seek a remedy against Big Tech’s censorship decisions in court.”

They added, “For far too long, Big Tech has been able to censor the views of conservatives with effectively no recourse available to those affected. This proposal would create a statutory basis for Americans to directly challenge Big Tech in court for its censorship and silencing of conservatives.”

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