Bipartisan US lawmakers call for legislation to regulate Big Tech

US Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar and Republican Representative Mike Gallagher have expressed their support for legislation to increase regulations on Big Tech, which is reportedly censoring the content and bending the rules in the Washington establishment’s favor to suppress narratives that it does not like.

Klobuchar, who has served as the chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights, said on Sunday Big Tech is “so powerful” that even bipartisan legislation can vanish because big companies interfere.

 The bipartisan bills are passed through the US Senate Judiciary Committee.

Klobuchar had called for an end-of-year bill to require Big Tech to pay news media outlets for the content they share out on their platforms, but she said Facebook and Google lobbied and block the legislation.

“We had such strong support for this bill, but these guys just make a few calls,” she said.

“Let’s just start facing the fact and stop pretending that they’re some little company in a garage,” Klobuchar said.

Gallagher said he is concerned that rescinding Section 230 could lead to greater censorship because social media platforms might proactively kick users off if they are afraid of facing lawsuits over their content, The Hill reported.

But, he added that the platforms’ algorithms need to be more transparent.

Gallagher said data portability should be mandated across platforms to allow people to take their network to any platform that has what they consider the best content moderation policies and transparency, the newspaper added.

He said he would like to speak with Klobuchar about her ideas for the best way for Congress to act on the issue.

Gallagher said Congress should work for consumer protection and try to communicate information about the terms of conditions that users must agree to for the platforms so they can understand them.

ME