Senate Bill 5 exists as a reaction to the overreach and excess of social-media firms that have taken it upon themselves to police the public square and stifle ideas and beliefs they disagree with—ideas held by broad swaths of the American public. They do so from a standpoint of exceptional power within our civic space, undergirded by a special favor granted to them, and to no other form of media, by federal legislation: exemption from liability for user-generated content. Unfortunately, what we see time and again is these firms’ unfitness to competently or consistently exercise that power. Individual citizens with unorthodox opinions are deplatformed, and then orthodoxy shifts. Democratically elected representatives are shut down, while dictatorial regimes communicate without hindrance.
TPPF Comments on FCC Net Neutrality Rulemaking
Dear Chairwoman Rosenworcel, The Texas Public Policy Foundation (Foundation) writes today in disapproval of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) recent Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, WC Docket No. 23-320 – Safeguarding and Securing the Open Internet (SSOI). The Foundation urges the Commission to vote against re-classifying Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as common carriers under Title II...