WASHINGTON – United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) joined Kudlow on Fox Business to discuss his new legislation, the 21st Century FREE Speech Act, and President Joe Biden’s upcoming joint address to Congress this evening.
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Partial Transcript Below:
Hagerty on the 21st Century FREE Speech Act: “I think, you know that some of these large tech companies really functioned as modern day common carriers today. What my act does is actually acknowledge that. If you think about it, it’s the same as telephones and telegraphs once were. So many people get most of their information today from these large platforms that are essentially unregulated. They’re allowed to sensor, they’re allowed to determine what we learn, what we believe. I don’t think Americans want that at all. So what my act does is it repeal section 230, the protection that they’ve been able to live behind. It really requires all of these large tech companies defined as large common platforms that have over a hundred million monthly subscribers. These platforms are going to have to be open to all comers in a very similar manner that we’ve regulated other organizations of that type in the past.”
Hagerty on Big Tech’s censorship of conservatives: “This will eliminate section 230, and it will prevent censorship in the form that we’ve seen take place most recently. It’s been egregious where major American political figures like President Trump can be censored, yet someone like the Ayatollah can stay up and remain online while calling for death to Israel. You had accurately reported stories in the New York Post about Hunter Biden taken down. This sort of censorship is not what America wants, and we don’t need these large corporations to tell us what to think, what to believe… That’s not the way the American public needs to be treated again. It’s up to Americans to determine what they want to learn, the ideas that they want to share. And we don’t need these large corporations again, hiding behind the veil of 230 to use these opaque standards to dictate what they believe Americans ought to see in here.”
Hagerty on Biden’s upcoming joint address: “I think that the American public is going to be very disappointed with what they hear tonight. I think you’re exactly right, Biden is playing to a left wing fringe and what we’re going to hear is a socialist wish list of things that he’d like to see accomplished with these misnamed bills that accomplish exactly the opposite.”