Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis responds to local TV reporter’s question after he signed legislation seeking to punish social media platforms that remove conservative ideas from their sites at Florida International University’s’s MARC building in Miami. (Carl Juste/Miami Herald via AP)
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 2:25 PM PT – Tuesday, May 25, 2021
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) recently hammered down on Big Tech overreach. He signed into law a new bill aimed at keeping Big Tech companies from censoring free speech and banning people from their platforms.
“This is a big problem,” he asserted. “We don’t even need to get into the election interference from Silicon Valley.”
The bill, titled SB 7072, aims to safeguard Floridians from social media censorship and impose hefty fines on platforms who ban political candidates as a way to crack down on such forms of election interference.
“They shadowban people which creates partisan echo chambers” he mentioned. “They are some of the major reasons why this country is divided for doing what they’re doing.”
Under the new law, any platform which bans a political candidate will receive a daily fine of $250,000.
Florida’s first-in-the-Nation Big Tech Bill will fine social media platforms $250,000 a day for deplatforming a statewide candidate for elected office. pic.twitter.com/jiohyGLccj
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) May 25, 2021
DeSantis began this crusade against Big Tech back in February when he began lobbing accusations at major platforms for disproportionately and unfairly silencing conservative voices. He believes this benefits their political ideologies.
“And they have used this power in Silicon Valley to oppose their orthodoxies and their ideologies on our public square,” he argued. “This is not how a free society should operate.”
The new law gives Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody the ability to take action against tech giants who make any moves in violation of the new law. Similarly, platform users from Florida will have the ability to sue social media giants as well.
The grounds for action will come from Florida’s unfair and deceptive Trade Policies Act, which would see censorship and shadowbanning by social media platforms as a violation of anti-trust law.
