ALG Seeks to Ensure Woke Microsoft Included

Fairfax, Va.  – The Senate Judiciary committee is marking up legislation on Thursday, Jan. 20 that seeks to restore competition online by establishing commonsense rules of the road for dominant digital platforms to prevent them from abusing their market power to harm competition, online businesses, and consumers.

Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Richard Manning issued the following statement in support of critical changes to the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, S. 2992:

“The Senate Judiciary Committee needs to include Microsoft, the world’s dominate office productivity software, into language that triggers potential antitrust action. Microsoft, which has had more acquisitions since 2011 than all other tech companies combined, has jumped into imposing ‘wokism’ into America’s bloodstream.

“Astonishingly, Microsoft Word now comes with the ability to suggest politically correct words in place of everyday language. For example, changing ‘blacklist’ and ‘whitelist’ to ‘accepted’ or ‘allowed list,’ and swapping the gender-specific ‘postman’ with ‘postal worker.’ Similarly, ‘humanity’ or ‘humankind’ is recommended over ‘mankind,’ and ‘expert’ is suggested when the software flags ‘master.’

“The fact that Microsoft has created an ability to interject its cultural bias onto our blank word document screen is frightening and dangerous. If the Senate Judiciary Committee is going to pass legislation to rein in Big Tech’s abuse of power, it is irresponsible to leave Microsoft’s dominant office productivity software off the table.”

Current bill language:

ONLINE PLATFORM.—The term “online platform” means a website, online or mobile application, operating system, digital assistant, or online service that—

(A) enables a user to generate content that can be viewed by other users on the platform or to interact with other content on the platform;

ALG suggested language change (changes in red):

ONLINE PLATFORM.—The term “online platform” means a website, online or mobile application, operating system, enterprise software, digital assistant, or online service that—

enables a user to generate content that can be viewed by other users on the platform or to interact with other content on the platform, to create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, or to communicate with others via email, messaging, voice, or video;

For media availability contact Catherine Mortensen at 703.478.4643 or cmortensen@getliberty.org.