Ted Cruz is 'encouraged' by Democrats on Big Tech - Washington Examiner

Staunch conservative Ted Cruz doesn't agree with Democrats about much, but holding Big Tech companies accountable is one of the few areas where he does. For the better part of the past year, the Texas senator has raised the alarm about the behavior of those in Silicon Valley, whether it's challenging their legal protections for content on their platforms, anti-competitive conduct, or their alleged anti-conservative bias.

"You know, I am encouraged to see Democrats taking on Big Tech. I think the power of Big Tech and Silicon Valley is deeply troubling," Cruz said during an interview with the Washington Examiner in his office in the Russell Senate Office Building.

"You know a great illustration is: Elizabeth Warren tried to buy Facebook ads urging that Facebook be broken up under the antitrust laws, and Facebook, in what I think was a colossally foolish move, blocked the ads — refused to let her run them," Cruz said. The incident prompted him to retweet Warren for the first time.

One of Cruz's biggest complaints against Big Tech is its defense of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives technology companies protections against lawsuits related to content created by users on their platforms.

During a Senate Commerce Committee hearing this month, Cruz said the provision allows "Big Tech to act with impunity, to engage in censorship of Americans whose political opinions they don't like and not to face liability for their conduct."

He also criticized the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade, President Trump's replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement, because a section in the agreement mirrors Section 230. The clause is "perceived by many to be a gift to Big Tech," Cruz said at the hearing.

Tech companies argue that the law is what allows them to moderate harmful content such as hate speech and threats on their platforms while also ensuring that the companies don't get unfairly penalized for objectionable user content.

Cruz spoke about tech regulation in his office, which features Snickers and Skittles from Texas, as well as a copy of Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham, which he once read on the Senate floor during a 21-hour anti-Obamacare talk marathon. Featured prominently is a humongous, colorful painting of President Ronald Reagan giving his "Tear Down This Wall" speech in front of the Berlin Wall.

The Texas Republican has a history of antagonizing the Establishment while backing small government and focusing on decentralization of authority. It plays a role in his skepticism of the growing size of Big Tech companies.

"By almost any measure, the giant tech companies today are larger and more powerful than Standard Oil when it was broken up," Cruz said at a hearing on technological censorship in April.

"If we have tech companies using the powers of monopoly to censor political speech, I think that raises real antitrust issues," said Cruz.

During the April hearing, when Cruz asked Facebook's and Twitter's representatives whether they were neutral platforms, neither of the social media giants would give a yes or no answer.

Google, Facebook, and Twitter, however, have all emphatically denied any technological anti-conservative bias, saying no evidence shows they systematically favor one political ideology over another on their platforms. Some point to a study by Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society that suggests that, in the current media environment, conservative news and propaganda spread further and faster than news from liberal sources.

Ultimately, Cruz is convinced that the "power and censorship of Big Tech is, I think, really dangerous," and he says this threat is "only growing."

"I don't think we want our democracy controlled by a handful of Silicon Valley billionaires," he said.