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January 1, GOP Goes After ‘Big Tech’ Following Greene’s Twitter Ban

Published

2 years ago

January 8, 2022

After Twitter banned Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)’s personal account, Republicans are bolstering their attacks against “Big Tech” and social media giants.

Former President Donald Trump issued a scathing statement, saying the platform was “a disgrace to democracy.”

“They shouldn’t be allowed to do business in this Country,” Trump said. “Marjorie Taylor Greene has a huge constituency of honest, patriotic, hard-working people. They don’t deserve what’s happened to them on places like low-life Twitter and Facebook.”

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) addressed the situation, vowing that the GOP will hold the social media giant “accountable,” should they win back the House in the 2022 midterm elections.

Twitter permanently suspended a sitting US President.

They’ve now permanently suspended a sitting member of US Congress.

Of course, both from the same party.

They forget that in 2022 we are taking back the House and we WILL be holding them accountable!
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) January 2, 2022

Twitter banned Trump a year ago, but experts say Greene’s ban sets a “more far-reaching precedent,” since Trump’s ban came as he was about to leave office.

“The fact that Twitter cut her off, despite being an elected official, is a substantial change in the broad latitude that elected officials have had in the past,” said Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) also criticized the company’s decision to permanently suspend a “sitting member of Congress.”

“It is clear any speech that does not fit Big Tech’s orthodoxy gets muzzled. America is poorer for that conduct,” McCarthy said in a statement.

Twitter’s action against Greene is fueling accusations from the GOP that “Big Tech” has an anti-conservative bias.

McCarthy said he directed “relevant committees and task forces to continue their work in getting answers — voluntarily or through rigorous congressional oversight — from Twitter and other Big Tech companies surrounding their decision to silence certain Americans and to hold these companies accountable.”

“House Republicans will be ready to take action that protects Americans when they express their constitutionally safeguarded views, just like we have laws on the books today that prohibit discrimination by corporations in many other contexts,” he said.