Mark Meadows Calls for Government Regulation After Trump’s Facebook Ban Decision: ‘Time to Break Up Big Tech’
Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows learned the news that an oversight board had decided to uphold the Facebook ban of his ex-boss, former President Donald Trump, during an appearance on Fox News’ America’s Newsroom.
While the news that the advisory board upheld the suspension was not much of a surprise, Meadows still lamented how it was a “sad day for America,” before revealing that a number of members of Congress would use this news as motivation to investigate, regulate and even break-up what he deems Facebook’s monopoly, and also called for a “break up of Big Tech.”
“It is a sad day for America, a sad day for Facebook because I can tell you, a number of members of Congress are now looking at do they break up Facebook,” Meadows said. “Do they make sure they don’t have a monopoly, and I can tell you that it is two different standards? One for Donald Trump and one for a number of other people that are on their sites and suggesting that more nefarious things than what the president has been accused of actually go unnoticed often.”
He then derided those that have benefited and enjoyed what he called “a very wild, wild west kind of regulatory environment,” before pledging “I can tell you that’s going to change.”
Fox News anchor/host hybrid Dana Perino asked her guest if there will be different legislative challenges under the Biden Administration (which currently enjoys Democratic control over both the House and Senate) as opposed to the past Trump administration.
“I would suggest it won’t be regulation they look at from the legislative standpoint. This is going to be a breakup of big tech,” Meadows replied. “When you look at Google and Facebook they have more power over what we read and what we see than any in the media. We look —very critically —at people buying TV stations to say they shouldn’t have a monopoly, yet Google and Facebook and YouTube actually control much of what America sees, whether it’s you and I talking right now and it gets reposted on any of those platforms, they have the ability to actually raise that profile or lower it and so it is time that we break up big tech, not just regulate them.”
Some readers may be old enough to remember when the Republican party was opposed to government interference and instead thought a free-market economy was the priority. Facebook is a privately held company, and as a result, has the right to suspend or ban any user who they deem violates the rules for use of its platform to which every user must agree or risk banning. Like, in the case of Donald Trump.
Watch above via Fox News.
