WASHINGTON—As Big Tech faces a bipartisan antitrust battle in Congress, Twitter today suspended for the third time Mike Davis, founder and president of the Internet Accountability Project, for an innocuous five-day-old tweet in which he called out President Biden’s lawless border policies.

“This is the third time Twitter has wrongly suspended me for a completely innocuous tweet. It’s no coincidence Big Tech is attempting to silence one of their biggest critics as they work to kill bipartisan legislation to rein in their monopoly power. Twitter’s censors are completely shameless and will stop at nothing to quell political opposition to their abusive and anticompetitive practices. Twitter will surely back down yet again, just as they did before after facing political backlash, and call this suspension a ‘mistake.’ This is no mistake. It’s my third baseless suspension in six months. That’s not a ‘mistake,’ that’s a targeted campaign to silence their foes. This is more evidence of Big Tech’s unlimited power to control political debate in this country. They must be cut down to size. Antitrust now.”

IAP is a nonprofit conservative advocacy group that holds Big Tech accountable for engaging in egregious business practices like snooping, spying, political bias against conservatives, employee abuses and anticompetitive conduct. Davis previously served as Chief Counsel for Nominations to Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary and led the Senate confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and a record number of circuit court judges.

More information on Davis and IAP can be found here.

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“Rep. Buck continues to lead the fight on behalf of American consumers against Big Tech’s anticompetitive behavior. Big Tech monopolists have nearly unlimited resources and shouldn’t be able to game the judicial system to shield themselves from legal and regulatory scrutiny. This is a matter fairness, accountability and the rule of law. Republicans in Congress should join Rep. Buck in this effort to help states reclaim their right to defend themselves from Big Tech’s abuses.”

IAP is a nonprofit conservative advocacy group that holds Big Tech accountable for engaging in egregious business practices like snooping, spying, political bias against conservatives, employee abuses and anticompetitive conduct. Davis previously served as Chief Counsel for Nominations to Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary and led the Senate confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and a record number of circuit court judges.
More information on Davis and IAP can be found here.

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“The Internet Accountability Project applauds Congressman Ken Buck (R-Colo.) and Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) – the top Republicans on the House and Senate antitrust subcommittees – for their effective efforts to get Parler back on Apple’s app store after Big Tech monopolists – Google, Apple, Amazon, and Twitter – and their allies in the corporate media wrongfully scapegoated Parler. Buck and Lee have shown time and again that they will stand up for the free-speech rights of all Americans, and we are pleased to see a pro-free-speech platform like Parler once more available to millions of Apple users.

“Before being unfairly targeted by its Big Tech rivals, Parler was the number-one app on Apple’s app store because it provided a place where Americans could share their views without censorship from the far-left oligarchs who control our access to information. The fact that trillion-dollar monopolists Google and Apple – the app-store duopoly/cartel – and another trillion-dollar monopolist (Amazon’s AWS) were able to use a kill switch to eliminate Twitter’s rival (Parler) proves that we must end antitrust amnesty and enforce our century-old antitrust laws. We are excited to see what is in store for this growing start-up company and look forward to Parler’s continued growth under its new Chief Executive Officer George Farmer.”

IAP is a nonprofit conservative advocacy group that holds Big Tech accountable for engaging in egregious business practices like snooping, spying, political bias against conservatives, employee abuses and anticompetitive conduct. Davis previously served as Chief Counsel for Nominations to Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary and led the Senate confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and a record number of circuit court judges. More information on Davis and IAP can be found here.

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Largely unregulated, Big Tech has become a threat to our democracy under our very noses. While we all enjoy the convenience of a quick Google search, easy deliveries from Amazon, and connections with old friends on Facebook, we have failed to enact laws to keep up with these corporations’  rapid technological innovation and ever-increasing market power. As a result, the Big Tech behemoths have been able to operate largely unfettered, controlling the flow of information, selling private citizens’ data, and punishing individuals whose views do not align with those of Big Tech’s woke employees.

The tipping point for many Americans came this January when Twitter permanently banned President Trump from its platform. Think about that – a private company banned the President of the United States of America in order to prevent him from communicating with the American people. But that is not the only egregious instance of Big Tech Robber Barons misusing the vast power they have managed to accumulate at our expense.  Indeed, examples of Big Tech abuse are plentiful. In October, for instance, Facebook and Twitter censored the New York Post over its Hunter Biden exposé. And again, on April 15th, Facebook prevented users from sharing another New York Post story about the BLM co-founder’s real estate shopping spree. Recently, Twitter  permanently banned Project Veritas’s James O’Keefe, a journalist, after he released a scathing expose that revealed the inner workings of how CNN covers the news.

Equally concerning is the power the Big Tech Robber Barons have over access to the free market. As the retail economy moved online, Big Tech assumed a role as the internet marketplace’s gatekeeper—claiming for itself the exclusive right to grant or deny businesses the privilege of selling their products to consumers. Amazon’s decision to remove Ryan T. Anderson’s book, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment, because Amazon disagreed with the author’s evaluation of transgenderism is one prominent example among many. Oftentimes, however, Big Tech’s manipulation is more subtle. Amazon has the ability to prioritize its own merchandise over that of smaller competitors; Google is dominant in digital advertising and controls what people will or will not find; and Facebook has the means and the will to promote some businesses over others. The result is an industry that holds more power over our livelihoods than the federal government, often in ways we fail even to notice. This monopolistic behavior cannot continue.

Fortunately, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and other courageous Florida elected officials stepped into the void by introducing the Transparency in Technology Act (TTA), which seeks to level the playing field by restoring transparency and accountability to the internet. The Republican-led Florida House and Senate are expected to send this bill to Governor DeSantis this week, so he can sign this important legislation into law.

Among other provisions, the bill would fine Big Tech companies up to $100,000 for deplatforming political candidates, permit citizens or the Florida Attorney General to sue Big Tech companies for violating their terms of service, and allow users to opt-out of algorithms that tailor content to individuals.  These measures are necessary to reduce the monopolistic power of Big Tech and to empower consumers.

Not only is TTA good public policy, it is overwhelmingly popular. A recent poll shows that Florida’s citizens are very much in favor of the proposal, with 59 percent of Florida voters expressing support for the legislature’s efforts compared to only 33 percent who oppose them. The poll also found that 60 percent of voters support requiring the publication of transparent standards for banning users, 67 percent of voters support equal access for news organizations and political candidates without algorithmic manipulation, 56 percent of voters support prohibiting arbitrary censorship, and 68 percent support giving users the power to opt-out of algorithms altogether.

With this bill, Governor Ron DeSantis and the legislature are giving the rest of the states a model on how to reduce the seemingly uncontrollable power of the Big Tech Robber Barons. By taking the side of Florida’s citizens over Big Tech and its deep pockets, Florida is leading the way in restoring fair competition and a freer and more accessible marketplace of information. The Internet Accountability Project (IAP), a grassroots organization that holds Big Tech accountable for their bad acts, fully supports Florida’s efforts and encourages other states to join the fight. Together, we can liberate the internet from its Big Tech overlords and restore power to the people, where it rightfully belongs.

Ian Prior is senior counsel and spokesman for the Internet Accountability Project (IAP), a conservative grassroots advocacy organization that opposes Big Tech and seeks to hold them accountable for their bad acts.

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Big Tech’s conservative defenders have long argued that there is little role for Congress to play in regulating the industry. They tell us that there will be a correction — that Big Tech’s power will, over time, be subdued by market forces. “More competition” is their mantra, and their response to Big Tech’s many abuses is that conservatives should simply “build their own Twitter.”

Parler, they claimed, showed proof of concept; conservatives harmed by Twitter were always “just a click away” from a viable alternative. Big Tech and the corporate media’s work to de-platform Parler has demonstrated that these naive, academic arguments fail to grasp the reality of the iron grip on the market that Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Twitter hold. Indeed, Big Tech owns the market. Misguided aphorisms about how the free market solves all problems are now plainly contradicted by evidence. The time for defending Big Tech practices is over — now is a time for action. Congress must level the playing field and end the anti-competitive control over information.

Conservatives should feel compelled to craft legislation to restore balanced markets for the free flow of ideas. Indeed, they have been working to stop anticompetitive practices for over a century. Antitrust law came into being during the era of the “Robber Baron” when companies like Standard Oil dominated their respective markets. It was the likes of Republican President Teddy Roosevelt and Senator John Sherman — the original trust busters — who recognized that the American people suffer when business oligarchs make fair competition in a free market impossible. Free markets require functioning markets, which can be achieved only when oligopolistic abuses are held in check.

Like the oligarchs of generations ago, the Big Tech neo-robber barons have their competitors in a chokehold. While Google and Facebook gobble up billions in advertising revenue, local media companies — which produce the content upon which Big Tech relies — are left with scraps. The result is that independent publications are forced to close, leaving Americans with fewer and fewer sources of news, and giving Big Tech an ever-louder voice. Without action, we may not be far away from a world in which the content of only the large corporate news organizations survive.

A bipartisan coalition, led by Republican Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, Democratic Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline, Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy and Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, recognizes that Congress has a role to play in protecting the American people from the corrosive practices of tech oligarchs. What these leaders propose, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), promises to be an essential tool for curbing Big Tech’s anticompetitive practices. Specifically, JCPA will achieve balance by allowing journalists to band together to negotiate with Google and Facebook for compensation for the use of the content these journalists created. In doing so, news organizations will be able to secure the advertising revenue they desperately need to survive and to provide reliable reporting to the American people.

Supporters of JCPA recognize that it will not curb every abuse. In many respects, Google, Facebook and Twitter will continue to serve as gatekeepers for the vast majority of content reaching the American people. In that capacity, they have had the ability to censor information with which they disagree. We saw their abuse of such awesome power during the 2020 election when they chose to kill legitimate news stories before the public had a chance to evaluate them. We have seen this in the recent Twitter ban of James O’Keefe for his CNN expose and Facebook preventing Americans from sharing a New York Post story — one of our nation’s oldest newspapers — on the property spending spree of a BLM co-founder. And in Australia, Facebook recently blocked users from sharing any news articles and even prevented authorities from circulating emergency messages — all in an attempt to pressure the government into backing down from enacting legislation similar to JCPA. Manipulation such as this ought to scare every American, and lawmakers from both parties should give serious thought to legislation aimed at limiting Big Tech’s unrestrained power.

JCPA is a crucial first step to restoring fairness because it will ensure that independent sources of news — from across the political spectrum — will not be suffocated by Big Tech’s neo-robber barons. We need more Republicans to join the effort in helping to reform federal laws that have allowed Big Tech to dominate competitors. It is time to put an end to unfair tactics that are not just crushing mom-and-pop shops, but entire industries that form the bedrock of our society. The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act is just one antitrust solution to the Big Tech problem. It is time for fair-minded conservatives to step up to the plate and stop Big Tech’s abuses before it is too late.

Mike Davis is founder and president of the Internet Accountability Project (IAP), a conservative grassroots advocacy organization that opposes Big Tech and seeks to hold them accountable for their bad acts. ###

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The Hawley proposal drew praise from Internet Accountability Project (IAP) Founder and President Mike Davis.

“Senator Hawley’s ‘Trust Busting for The Twenty-First Century Act’ is the type of bold leadership and smart legislation this country so desperately needs,” Davis said in a statement.

“Senator Hawley’s commonsense bill introduces the hard reset Congress must enact to save the free market from abusive trillion-dollar Big Tech monopolists and other giant woke corporations attempting to exert too much power and control over our lives.

“For too long, through antitrust amnesty and Section 230 immunity, Google has been allowed to exert too much influence through its control over the internet. Along with Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter, they continue to censor conservatives, violate our privacy and crush their competition at all costs and without consequence.”

Davis is the former chief counsel to Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) when he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He’s also a former aide to then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), and law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, when he served on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Read more.

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“Senator Hawley’s ‘Trust Busting For The Twenty-First Century Act’ is the type of bold leadership and smart legislation this country so desperately needs. Senator Hawley’s commonsense bill introduces the hard reset Congress must enact to save the free market from abusive trillion-dollar Big Tech monopolists and other giant woke corporations attempting to exert too much power and control over our lives. 

“For too long, through antitrust amnesty and Section 230 immunity, Google has been allowed to exert too much influence through its control over the internet. Along with Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter, they continue to censor conservatives, violate our privacy and crush their competition at all costs and without consequence.

“IAP applauds Senator Hawley’s leadership, and we encourage his Republican colleagues to join him in this fight. Words are not enough and silence is unacceptable. The time for action on antitrust is now. Congress must pass strong antitrust laws in order to protect competition and prevent future monopolistic behavior that destroys our competitive free markets.” 

IAP is a nonprofit conservative advocacy group that holds Big Tech accountable for engaging in egregious business practices like snooping, spying, political bias against conservatives, employee abuses and anticompetitive conduct. Davis previously served as Chief Counsel for Nominations to Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary and led the Senate confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and a record number of circuit court judges.

More information on Davis and IAP can be found here.

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“When Twitter targets conservatives – including President Trump – Big Tech shills tell us to ‘build our own Twitter.’ So Parler did. Then trillion-dollar monopolists Google and Apple – running their duopoly/cartel – kicked Parler out of the app stores. Then trillion-dollar monopolist Amazon kicked Parler off the internet. The stated reason for Google, Amazon, and Apple’s anticompetitive conspiracy was that Parler promoted the violence at the January 6^th protests at the Capitol. But we’ve learned today that was a bogus, pretextual excuse by three trillion-dollar Big Tech monopolists (Google, Apple, and Amazon) to kill a competitor of Twitter (another Big Tech monopolist). Indeed, we now know that in the days and weeks leading up to January 6th, Parler made over 50 referrals of violent content to the FBI, including specific threats of violence being planned at the Capitol. Now we know the truth, which is Big Tech used Parler as a scapegoat to destroy a startup company that was a viable threat to their social media dominance.”

IAP is a nonprofit conservative advocacy group that holds Big Tech accountable for engaging in egregious business practices like snooping, spying, political bias against conservatives, employee abuses and anticompetitive conduct. Davis previously served as Chief Counsel for Nominations to Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary and led the Senate confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and a record number of circuit court judges.

More information on Davis and IAP can be found here.

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