SB 12, if enacted into law, would address the free speech impairment created by giant social media companies engaging in viewpoint-based censorship.
Free speech is a vital part of American life and law, and with increasing regularity, has been infringed upon by Big Tech companies. These companies have vast and virtually monopolistic powers and impose substantial control over online public discourse in Texas and throughout the United States.
Ordinarily, we would be sympathetic to an argument that people who are dissatisfied, or who have been de-platformed by mainstream social media sites, start their own competing sites. However, as we have witnessed in recent months, the entrenched Big Tech sites have extensive power to prevent nascent competitors from flourishing or may simply take competitors offline entirely.
The state has a legitimate interest in ensuring that the internet, which is akin to a public utility, does not operate in service to one political ideology at the expense of others. The free exchange of competing ideas must be protected in the virtual town square, just as it is in the physical town square.
For these reasons we strongly support SB 12.