June 29, 2022, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging opposition to “American Innovation and Choice Online Act”:
“I have a great deal of respect for Representative Ken Buck, (R-Colo.), but I cannot understand why he would be pushing a Democrat anti-trust bill which does not include prohibitions on social media censorship of conservative viewpoints. Yet that is exactly what Representative Buck is doing in his on-going support for the ‘American Innovation and Choice Online Act’ (AICOA).
“Buck himself admitted that President Joe Biden will not sign a bill that, ‘harms the kind of censorship that the Democrats have appreciated in the last few years.’
“In plain terms, Biden won’t sign any bill that stops social media censorship of conservative thought. Not a surprise given that this administration (Department of Homeland Security) has admitted to working with social media companies to censor speech related to 2020 election security and COVID on their website. And it is this same agency which was pushing to have a Disinformation Governance Board to coordinate government wide social media censorship efforts of conservatives.
“So the question seems obvious. Why would any Republican support without precondition giving the federal government more power over social media companies knowing that the Biden administration is already leveraging those companies to shutter speech on the right?
“They shouldn’t. Americans for Limited Government urges every member of Congress, including Rep. Ken Buck, to join us in opposing passage of the American Innovation and Choice Online Act.”
For media availability contact Americans for Limited Government at media@limitgov.org.
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