Texas Governor Announces Crackdown on Censorship by Social Media Companies

Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced a new bill on Friday that would stop big tech companies from censoring users based on their point of view. The governor held a press conference with state senator Bryan Hughes to propose the legislation so that “conservative speech will not be cancelled in the state of Texas.”

Prior to the press conference, Governor Abbott tweeted his support for the proposed legislation, Senate Bill 12.

“I am joining @SenBryanHughes to announce a bill prohibiting social media companies from censoring viewpoints,” he wrote. “Too many social media sites silence conservative speech and ideas and trample free speech. It’s un-American, Un-Texan, & soon to be illegal.”

Speaking at the press conference, Gov. Abbott said, “We see that the First Amendment is under assault by these social media companies, and that is not going to be tolerated in Texas.”

The governor spoke about a “dangerous movement” around the country that is trying to “silence conservative ideas [and] religious beliefs.”

“Now we are also seeing… these social media tech companies are using their tools to silence conservative speech on their platforms… [the bill] protects Texans from being wrongfully censored on social media,” he added. “Texas is taking a stand against big tech political censorship. We’re not going to allow it in the Lone Star state.”

The bill prohibits social media companies from censoring Texans based on their viewpoints and allows any Texan censored or deplatformed by a social media company to file a lawsuit against the company to restore their account.

The governor added that he expects to sign the bill into law during Texas’ current legislative session, which runs from January 12 to May 31. This leaves the state legislature just under three months left to consider and vote on the bill.

The proposed legislation follows Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ recent proposal also cracking down on big tech companies, which The Daily Citizen previously reported on.

Some Democrats have also recently warned about the enormous amount of power that social media platforms hold. Former Democrat Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard said in a recent interview, “This is such a dangerous situation… a lot more people are starting to become really aware of how much power these big tech corporations have been building.”

As Christians, Jesus reminds us about the importance of the truth.

“Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’” (John 8:31-23).

In our modern era, many tech companies have decided to go to war with the truth. And it’s difficult for Christians to learn and speak the truth when tech companies constantly censor or remove truthful information.

This was evidenced by Twitter’s recent decision to suspend The Daily Citizen’s account because of our identification of Dr. Rachel Levine (a transgender woman) as a biological male. Even more recently, Amazon decided to stop selling Christian philosopher Ryan T. Anderson’s book When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment because of its criticism of transgender ideology.

It’s not easy to be a Christian in our current cultural climate. But we should not be surprised. Jesus reminds us in John 15:18, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.”

At Focus on the Family, we care about speaking truth and transmitting it to the next generation. Consider The Truth Project, which helps individuals and families see the world from a biblical point of view. So far, this is one Christian product that big tech hasn’t banned.

You can follow this author on Parler @ZacharyMettler

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