Governor touts bill to protect Texans from wrongful social media censorship
AUSTIN - "It’s sad that we have a handful of people in America today who want to control town square control social media and want to enforce silence," said State Senator Bryan Hughes.
Hughes is sponsoring House Bill 12.
He and Governor Greg Abbott say social media giants like Facebook and Twitter are the modern-day town square but not all voices are getting heard.
"The first amendment is under assault by these social media companies and that is not going to be tolerated in Texas," said Abbott.
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The governor believes only conservative voices are being silenced not liberal ones.
"Big Tech’s efforts to silence conservative viewpoints is un-American un-Texan and it’s unacceptable and pretty soon it’s going to be against the law," Abbott said.
Former President Trump was removed from Facebook and Twitter for untruthful claims of voter fraud.
Other than that there’s really little to no proof conservative views are being censored.
"There really isn’t anything concrete that you can say there’s a systematic bias against conservative voices on Facebook or Twitter but there is a belief among many republicans that bias exists," said political consultant Mark Jones.
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Hughes and Abbott believe the proposed new law will get around an existing federal law that prohibits social media companies from being sued for removing or blocking users.
"Under section 230 states have the right to protect free speech," Hughes said. "We believe this works and it will be the model for the nation this will protect Texans' free speech and get them back on-line.
Some believe the bill is merely a poll I rival move to fix a problem that’s not really one.
"It also helps distract from some of the other issues going on such as COVID 19 the winter storm and ERCOT," said Jones.