Sen. Ted Cruz: Big Tech’s lack of transparency is no accident. It’s a deliberate feature. On May 5, 2022, Sen. Ted Cruz discussed how Big Tech is the single biggest threat to free speech in the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing entitled, “Platform Transparency: Understanding the Impact of Social Media,” Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law. “It is obvious someone flipped the switch,” the Texas Republican said. “The governors they had on that said ‘silence conservatives’ were flipped off. That is the only rational explanation.”
Cruz: Look I’ll give you one data point. I asked how many were blocked nobody knew, I could ask how many were shadow bands no one would know because they don’t tell you. But I’ll give you one data point from my own twitter page. I’m active on twitter spent a lot of time on social media so twitter accepted Elon Musk’s offer to purchase on April 25th.
All right, on April 22nd my twitter account gained 1488 new followers; on April 23rd it gained 1526 new followers; on April 24th it gained 1486 new followers; on April 25th it gained 1 214 followers. Going back I was pretty consistently gaining 1 000 to 2000 a day. Elon Musk’s offer to purchase them, the next day April 26th, Mr. chairman I would ask you how many new followers do you think I gained the next day?
Chairman: more than a thousand.
Cruz: you would be correct the next day I gained 51,405; the next day April 27th I gained 61,261; the next day April 28th I gained 70,584. In the week and a half since Elon Musk purchased twitter, my twitter followers went from 4.8 million to 5.1 million. Conservatives all across the country reported numbers like that. And it is obvious someone flipped a switch. The governors they had on that said silence conservatives were flipped off. That is the only rational explanation from going from 1K to 70K, the day after he bought it. I’ll just point out he hasn’t even taken it over yet. This is just the interim effect of some engineers who I imagine are running the document shredders like crazy, going: oh crap they’re gonna find out what we’re doing, turn the stuff off.
Cruz: The single biggest threat to free speech in this country in my judgment is the power of big tech a handful of silicon valley billionaires who have irrigated to themselves complete monopoly power over the public discourse. Prof. Keller just referred to these social media sites as the public square and that is very accurate. It is how we speak with each other and big tech has gotten more and more brazen in its abuse of that power. This is a hearing on transparency for big tech I would be in support of almost anything imaginable to increase transparency for big tech … It’s not clear to me why a professor at Harvard or Stanford should have some special access that that Joe citizens should not when it comes to transparency.
The people have a right to know .. the lack of transparency is not an accident. It is a deliberate feature of how big tech has set up its systems … does anyone know how many posts from republican candidates for office were blocked? … does anyone know the average ad rate charged by google or by Facebook .. nobody knows. I don’t know, the chairman doesn’t know. I’ll tell you Mark Zuckerberg has sat at that table I’ve asked him that question. I’ve asked the CEO of google those questions. I’ve asked them those questions in writing and they hire teams of lawyers to write letters back that say in every way possible pound sand we refuse to tell you, but by the way trust us we’re not censoring, we’re just not going to tell you.
During the trump administration, I beg the department of justice if they did nothing else on big tech censorship to use the subpoena authority of DOJ to get answers to basic questions on transparency … but they did not get that accomplished.
Few things illustrate the abuse of power a big tech over free speech better than the reaction in the last two weeks. Elon Musk announcing that he’s buying twitter I find it quite remarkable. I think Elon Musk’s buying twitter is without exaggeration the most significant development in favor of free speech in decades. I also find it astonishing the reaction of much of the corporate media in the left to Elon Musk buying twitter and oh my god suddenly conservatives being allowed to speak and it is truly Armageddon. It’s cats and dogs living for together it is the worst imaginable watching the public histrionics of the left if their opponents are not silenced is amazing. And by the way Elon Musk the last time checked is not some right wing character he’s a lifelong democrat who voted for Barack Obama twice and this is the scary specter because he’s dared to stand up and say you know we’ll allow free speech and we’ll allow speech I disagree with.
https://facebook.com/HygoNewsUSA/videos/406904687717621/
Cruz: obvious someone flipped a switch, rational explanation from 1K to 70K after Musk twitter purchase.