Kevin Roberts, president Heritage Foundation, decried Big Tech’s ‘enemy of the people’
In a new report, the Heritage Foundation warns that Big Tech censorship will leave conservatives as “second-class citizens” with no mounted resistance.
Fox News Digital exclusive access to the latest report from the conservative think tank Washington, D.C., that it calls an “authoritative assessment” of how Big Tech “weaponized unprecedented strength and influence to silence Americans,” undermined liberty, and “fundamentally reshaped American society.”
This new report comes amid increasing calls from the left for Spotify to remove Joe Rogan, a popular music streaming service, from its platform.
Kevin Roberts, president of Heritage Foundation, decried Big Tech and called it “the enemy” and stated that “these powerful corporations’ undeniable servitude to leftist ideology eerily mirrors oppressive behaviour by totalitarian governments to silence resistance and relegate others to second-class citizens.”
“Every American should be concerned about Big Tech’s manipulations of the free marketplace to exploit consumers and censor conservatives. They also target children and expand chilling surveillance programs. They selectively limit access the public square. He continued. It will take everyone to fight Big Tech and hold these companies accountable for their flagrant abuses and undermining the common good.
Kara Frederick, who is the author of this report, stated in the release that corporations do not have the right “to undermine the basic values, rights that make our republic the beaconof freedom and opportunity that they are today” and that they should not be allowed to manipulate the system that has enriched them.
Frederick said, “That’s exactly what Big Tech did in recent years.” True accountability is the only way to stop these abuses. We are publishing this set of recommendations to provide policymakers at all levels with a roadmap to ending Big Tech’s pernicious influence and ability to work hand in glove with governments to control speech.
Frederick called for “aggressive, meaningful reforms that will guarantee all Americans freedom of expression in the digital spaces” and warned that Big Tech had “increasingly and systematically exercised control over information and access to digital space in ways which undermine our republic.”
She said that “Heritage’s suggestions go right to the heart and soul of this influence.”
Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, who is a Republican, stated in a Monday statement to Fox News Digital that the report “highlights many ways that Big Tech corporations exert significant control over people’s daily lives, often without our even realizing.”
Lummis said that “Many members on both sides have already come together to propose solutions to these problems.” “It is my hope that this report will provide the roadmap to solving these problems once and for all.”
According to the press release one of the recommendations is that Congress ensures the “enforcement and reform of antitrust laws wherever necessary.” Another call is for Congress to “pass data protection legislation.”
Some of the recommendations were also for U.S. tech companies. One called on them to make “firm commitments” to user control efforts such as third-party algorithm usage, and not just hinting at them before Congress.
The report argues that leftist ideology has captured too many “gatekeepers” of information for Americans – academia, elite media, government institutions and other organs of culture.
The report states that Big Tech companies have not been afraid to use their power in service of this ideology, as the past year has shown. Big Tech companies’ ability to control the flow of information is transformative, given their global position as oligopolies.
The article warns that Americans should be concerned about Big Tech’s willingness not to allow direct access to digital information, their proven pattern of information manipulation and their effect on America’s culture for free speech.
It continues, “Beyond that, the growing symbiosis among Big Tech and government and the constriction and exploitation of next generation and the expansion digital surveillance will accelerate American society’s stratification.”
The report warns that “current patterns will not be disrupted”, and that conservatives will bear most of the tech-enabled class system implemented hand in glove with the government.
It states that conservatives must act immediately to avoid this fate: to fight, build, and restore the principles and democratic promise of technology. “The stakes are increasing by the day.”
The report concludes that “if we don’t confront this tech-enabled staification now, conservatives would be relegated at the rank of second-class citizens. They will be constrained within a patchwork or completely cut off from the new digital universe.”