by Bonchie
Ted Cruz is no stranger to confronting the power structures of the left. That includes big tech, and while appearing with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News, Cruz levied a big charge against the Silicon Valley oligarchs who seek to control the flow of information in the United States and beyond. This comes in the wake of widespread censorship targeting right-leaning entities and discussions.
Cruz, noting the recent decision by Facebook to lift their ban on the discussion of COVID-19 being leaked from a lab, says that the social media giant was operating âon behalf of the government.â Cruz also argued that legal liability could stem from their actions.
Sen. Cruz argues Facebook was censoring COVID-19 content âon behalf of the governmentâ https://t.co/a0cFo00RFd
— Fox News (@FoxNews) June 6, 2021
âThese latest breakthroughs have real consequence because it now is clear that Facebook was operating at the direction of and in the direct benefit of the federal government and operating as the governmentâs censor, utilizing their monopoly position to censor on behalf of the government,â Cruz told host Maria Bartiromo.
He then called it âa very dangerous admission that is now out there for Facebook,â explaining that there could be legal ramifications for anybody âwhose speech was censored by Facebookâ on the topic.
âIf you went out and posted the facts that led a year ago to the very strong likelihood that the COVID virus escaped from a Chinese government lab in Wuhan, China, if you posted that a year ago and they took it down, I think thereâs a very good argument you have a cause of action against Facebook,â Cruz said.
Cruz is exactly correct that Facebook and other social media companies were operating on behalf of the government, though, it wasnât at the behest of the Trump administration while it was in power. Rather, it appears to have been done in coordination with far-left bureaucrats.
In fact, the reveal of Dr. Anthony Fauciâs emails proved that he was in direct contact with Mark Zuckerberg, who reached out to coordinate with Fauci on messaging. Given we donât have a transcript of Fauciâs proceeding phone calls, we canât know for sure what was discussed over the last year-plus between the two, but what we do know is what decisions followed.
Facebook had been absolutely ruthless against anyone who would dare to suggest COVID-19 came from anything else but nature. That was the oligarchy-blessed explanation, and nothing else was up for discussion. Only after the Biden administration was finally forced to admit that an investigation into the origins was needed, and that the lab leak theory was plausible, did Facebook do an about-face. Thatâs only further evidence that they are working on behalf of government interests, just as Cruz suggests.
The suggestion of the legality of all this is also very interesting. Hereâs Cruz on that matter.
âWell, you know what, when they act at the behest of the government, when they contact [Anthony] Fauci, when they say, âShould we censor this?â and Fauci says, âYesâ and they censor it for the federal government and then magically when the government changes its mind, and say, âOh, all those facts that were there a year ago, now youâre allowed to talk about it,â they stopped censoring it with a flip of a switch, that lays a very strong argument that Facebook is operating as a state agency and that opens very significant legal liability.â
I believe thereâs more than enough evidence at this point to assert that these big tech companies have been colluding with the federal government. The real question is what can be done about it. With Democrats in charge of Congress, the answer is probably: not much. Bidenâs DOJ certainly isnât going to get involved. Weâve seen the lack of interest the DOJ/FBI has in pursuing anything that could harm a left-wing interest.
In the end, itâs going to take a regaining of power by Republicans and a will to actually act to fix this situation. That starts in 2022 with the GOP getting the power of committee investigations back by winning Congress. It culminates in 2024 with a Republican becoming president again and having a willingness to use a big stick on the rank illiberalism coming from big tech.