Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) called for private citizens to be able to sue Twitter during an appearance on Monday’s broadcast of FNC’s “Fox News Primetime.”
Hawley criticized Twitter’s new privacy policy prohibiting some images from being shared without consent.
“I promise you what it won’t mean, and the people whose privacy won’t be protected are normal Americans who want to express their views, particularly if they have conservative views. I promise that you their privacy won’t be respected. They will still get censored. They will still get tracked around. Let’s just remember what Twitter does by the way how they make their money. They track us around the web everywhere they — everywhere we go. They collect a dossier on us. They sell our information. They profit off of us. I promise you they are not going to stop doing any of that stuff. And at the end of the day, Pete here’s the deal. The last thing America needs is another big tech robber baron who doesn’t care anything for free speech, and that’s exactly what Twitter is giving us.
The Missouri Republican said a double standard applied to Twitter in this situation and went on to suggest it be broken up.
“[I]t’s a classic what’s become the rule of the left which is rules for thee but not for me. You know, they don’t follow their own standards. They never do. Here is the other thing about Twitter. It doesn’t matter what they write down. They don’t follow any of the rules anyway. They just make it up as they go along. And the worst part is you can’t go to court to enforce it. Currently, Twitter has immunity. So, if they violate their terms of service as to you, there is nothing you can do about it. We should change that. You should be able to go and sue in court and the other thing we ought to do, Pete, is we have to break them up.”
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