A new legislative effort has been launched in the US Senate in order to prevent any future instances of government Tech collusion from flying under the legislators’ radar.
The Transparency in Bureaucratic Communications Act, introduced by Republican Senator Eric Schmitt, would have inspectors general (IGs) inform Congress in detail about any communication, and circumstances of that communication, between the agencies these watchdogs are in charge of, and companies benefiting from Section 230 protections.
We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.
Judging by a press statement by Schmitt, the concern is that, even with the government accused of such collusion now on its way out, what he refers to as “the deep state” might still continue to “work” with Big Tech.
“The incoming Republican Congress cannot allow deep-state bureaucrats to continue censoring the free speech of our constituents any longer (…) We will find the bureaucratic rot and we will rip it out,” Schmitt stated.
At the same time, the senator urged that “the full extent” of the censorship carried out during the previous administration must continue to be exposed.
Schmitt was behind the 2022 Missouri v. Biden lawsuit, filed in his then capacity as the state’s attorney general, which eventually reached the Supreme Court as Murthy v. Missouri. This case concerned allegations of unconstitutional government collusion with tech companies with the goal of censoring Americans.
Now, Schmitt’s proposed bill also requires that inspectors general – there are currently 74 of those – provide “a comprehensive reporting of all communications on content moderation, user content, and communications related to these (Section 230 protected) companies’ algorithms.”
Although the Supreme Court eventually ruled that Murthy v. Missouri lacked standing, the case brought crucial attention to the issue of online censorship, in the ways it involves the government.
When Elon Musk in 2022 acquired Twitter and then decided to release what turned out to be a damning trove of internal documents, the public had the chance to further learn how the administration leaned on tech companies to censor.
Third parties – various “fact-checking,” “rating,” etc. groups – effectively played the role of intermediaries to bypass constitutional prohibitions.
Even during the previous administration, House Republicans in particular sought to shed light on these practices, including through a Judiciary Committee investigation, which at one point even had Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that the government put pressure on the giant to censor, saying it was “wrong.”
