Former Congressman Ron Paul recently criticized Big Tech.
Social media companies have been in the spotlight lately for their censorship against dissident conservatives and other people on the right.
This has raised questions of what needs to be done against Big Tech.
The topic that Paul addressed dealt with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin railing against Amazon for destroying the American retail sector.
While there are some valid concerns about the economic displacement that has come about from this, Ron Paul takes a different approach on this issue. He believes “bigness” coming “from benefits from government” is a bigger problem.
Paul told Kitco News, “Yes, they’re too big, but I don’t think I approach it the same way [Mnuchin] does, because I think if a company is big because it produces a product and the people like it and they reward that company, and even if it gets very big, there’s nothing wrong with that.”
He added, “Some of the [social media companies] are big because they’ve had advantages from the government.”
In sum, Paul concedes that some tech companies are big because of government aid. In his view, however, that does justify a breakup of these companies.
He stated:
Why are [tech companies] big? Under these circumstances, I see the social media companies having had benefits early on and they continue. They’re an arm of the government.
They provide a lot of information to the government and I think that’s what has to be changed, not just the idea of breakup.
Solving the Big Tech riddle is complicated.
However, we must recognize that many of these companies benefit from Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which gives social media companies the benefits of being both platforms and publishers, while not having to bear the liabilities of being publishers.
For those who believe in limited government, getting rid of government-granted privileges in Section 230 and allowing content creators to use torts against social media companies that deplatform and effectively libel them are better paths to take in addressing tech censorship.
