Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), who has been endorsed by Donald Trump in the Alabama Senate race, gave an exclusive interview to Breitbart News about the threat of tech censorship, comparing Silicon Valley’s suppression of speech to Communist China’s and urging the breakup of Big Tech companies.
Rep. Brooks released a statement yesterday condemning the Facebook Oversight Board’s decision to uphold a ban on Donald Trump from the platform, calling it a “direct attack on the First Amendment’s Freedom of Speech rights.”
The congressman has proposed the use of anti-trust laws to break up Big Tech monopolies, and for the repeal of Section 230 legal immunities for platforms that behave like publishers.
In further comments to Breitbart News, Brooks gave his views on the anti-democratic impact of censorship.
“Suppression of freedom speech reminds me much too much of the speech control exhibited in communist China, North Korea, [and] Nazi, Germany,” said Rep. Brooks.
“I would hope that they would understand that they are permitted to exist and thrive because the American citizenry allows them to. If Big Tech is going to deny Americans their fundamental right to freedom of speech, Big Tech needs to start being concerned about whether they will be allowed to operate in the United States of America.”
Responding to arguments from establishment conservatives that interfering in tech companies is the same as interfering in the free market, Rep. Brooks pointed out that the tech industry is no longer a free market.
The free market argument, said Brooks, is “a valid argument where there is competition.”
“Where there is no competition, where there are monopolistic environments, in which the Big Tech companies are operating… you have over a century of law in the United States that allows the government to intervene and break up those monopolies, or, as an alternative, force those monopolies to conduct themselves in a better fashion.”
The congressman went on to say that freedom of speech benefits individuals, while only evil forces benefit from censorship.
“Individual people benefit the most from a healthy respect for freedom of speech rights, and the protection of freedom of speech,” said Rep. Brooks.
“Evil is most able to thrive in environments in which their bad conduct cannot be exposed.”
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.
