Senator Tom Cotton On “FaceApp,” Facebook, Google And Big Tech Generally

[Valin]

Hugh Hewitt Show

Hugh Hewitt

July 18 2019

Audio

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HH: Now your colleague, Josh Hawley, has made it his goal to bring antitrust scrutiny to bear on the FAANG stocks – Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google. Netflix is getting hammered by the market today, because their subscriber base dropped. They’re down 10%. But let’s talk specifically about Facebook and Google, Senator Cotton, from the perspective as a member of the Intel Committee, and as a member of the Armed Services Committee. Are Facebook and Google worse actors or the same sort of actors as Amazon, Netflix and Apple?

TC: Hugh, I don’t want to get into ranking private companies based on their actions, but I will say, without a much more developed factual record. And there are Congressional committees like the Intelligence Committee or like this week, the Banking Committee, where we had Facebook in to talk about their new digital currency, Libra. But there’s no doubt these companies need heightened scrutiny. And I have concerns not just about the threats to privacy and security, Hugh, but also the way they discriminate against conservative viewpoints. I mean, this is one question I had at the Banking Committee this week. My Democratic colleagues on the Banking Committee like to send letters to big Wall Street banks telling them not to do business with gun manufacturers or other disfavored customers. What’s to stop Facebook, which as Mark Zuckerberg said, populated by, or is an extremely leftwing place, to stop just individuals like you and your listeners from using its digital currency to buy a gun at a gun retailer, or go to Jack Phillip’s cake shop in Colorado. Or for that matter, go to a gas station and pay for your gas, because it’s a fossil fuel. I think Facebook and other companies need to have answers for this.

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I don't want to go all tinfoil hat on people but......

Revelation 13:16-17 International Standard Version (ISV)

16 The second beast[a] forces all people—important and unimportant, rich and poor, free and slaves—to be marked on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that no one may buy or sell unless he has the mark, which is the beast’s name or the number of its name.