Republican Congressmen with History Against Big Tech Don’t Understand Digital Content
There’s more than a few Republicans who have a thing against big tech. One brief submitted by Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Congressman Mike Johnson, along with 15 other members of congress, relies on the usual anti-big tech rhetoric and erroneous complaints of conservative censorship (AKA content moderation, the very thing that upending 230 would promote more of). The congress members argued that tech companies censor “opposing viewpoints… without the slightest fear of legal liability.”
Though the brief isn’t in explicit support of one side or the other, Cruz and the other Republicans asked the court to “return 230 to its textual scope,” that being it doesn’t provide “immunity” to tech companies.
Senator Josh Hawley, a fellow conservative who’s known for criticizing big tech, also included his own piece saying that 230 shields platforms from publisher liability “not distributor liability.” He further argued that the court should make companies liable for the content they have “actual knowledge” existing on the platform, though that line of argument flies in the face of how content algorithms actually work.
