Governor Abbott wants to stop social media platforms from censoring right wing thinkers.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced his office is working with State Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, on legislation that would "prevent social media providers like Facebook & Twitter from canceling conservative speech."
"We filed a bill about this during the last session two years ago, it passed the Senate did not make it through the House,” Hughes told WFAA’s Inside Texas Politics in an interview on Sunday. "So the bill we’re getting ready to file will say that if a company discriminates against you, deplatforms you, blocks you, kicks you off based on your viewpoint, based on your politics, your religion, based on viewpoint discrimination, it will give you a way to get back online.”
According to Hughes, the previous bill looked at different options for how users can bring discrimination lawsuits against the social media giants.
"What we would like to do is to give any Texan who's being discriminated against, the option to bring an action and we think that will get Facebook's attention, get Twitter's attention, and cause them to start treating Texans fairly,” Hughes added.
Hughes and Abbott are not the only government officials seeking to hold big tech accountable for actions on their platforms.
Democratic Sens. Mark Warner, a former tech entrepreneur from Virginia, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota have recently introduced the Safeguarding Against Fraud, Exploitation, Threats, Extremism and Consumer Harms Act (SAFE TECH Act), which would aim to mitigate harmful content currently protected by Section 230.
Section 230 is a provision in the Communications Decency Act which shields social media companies from liability in relation to content posted on their platforms by third parties.
"Section 230 has provided a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card to the largest platform companies even as their sites are used by scam artists, harassers, and violent extremists to cause damage and injury," Warner said in a statement.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R), with US Senator Ted Cruz (L), attends a briefing for US President Donald Trump (off camera) in Orange, Texas, on August 29, 2020. Trump surveyed damage in the area caused by Hurricane Laura. - At least 15 people were killed after Laura slammed into the southern US states of Louisiana and Texas, authorities and local media said on August 28. (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP) (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)