{"id":977906,"date":"2021-11-06T19:14:32","date_gmt":"2021-11-06T23:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=977906"},"modified":"2021-11-06T19:14:38","modified_gmt":"2021-11-06T23:14:38","slug":"az-senate-candidate-blake-masters-on-big-tech-no-platform-immunity-if-youre-censoring-content-and-acting-like-a-publisher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/az-senate-candidate-blake-masters-on-big-tech-no-platform-immunity-if-youre-censoring-content-and-acting-like-a-publisher\/","title":{"rendered":"AZ Senate Candidate Blake Masters On Big Tech: No \u2018Platform Immunity\u2019 If You\u2019re \u2018Censoring Content And Acting Like A Publisher\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">40<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Faz-senate-candidate-blake-masters-on-big-tech-no-platform-immunity-if-youre-censoring-content-and-acting-like-a-publisher%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=977906&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>In July, 35-year-old Blake Masters, who is Chief Operating Officer of Thiel Capital and president of The Thiel Foundation, announced his candidacy for Senate in Arizona.<\/p>\n<p>Should Masters win the Republican primary next August, he will face off against Democratic Senator Mark Kelley in November 2022. According to a third-quarter Federal Elections Commission (FEC) filing, Masters has raised more than $1.1 million.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, I had the opportunity to speak with Masters about a variety of topics, including big tech censorship. I also spoke with Masters about the border, which you can check out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/az-senate-candidate-blake-masters-finish-the-border-wall-2022-will-make-or-break-america\">here<\/a> (and the full Blake Masters interview will be released on Sunday).<\/p>\n<p>With some politicians wanting to eliminate Section 230, others wanting to refine it, and still others who believe that anti-trust is the answer to big tech regulation, I asked Masters what he believes should be done about the issue.<\/p>\n<p>He replied, stating that a radical reformation of Section 230, or stripping \u201cthe protection from liability from these companies,\u201d is not off the table.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf they want to act like publishers, we\u2019ll treat them like publishers,\u201d Masters said. \u201cYou don\u2019t get platform immunity if you\u2019re actually putting your thumb on the scale and censoring content and acting like a publisher.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Senate candidate then spoke about anti-trust:<\/p>\n<p><em>Facebook is going to be this giant multinational corporation; if they\u2019re going to actively intervene in elections, either because their founder is spending $400 million, you know, to distribute to various nonprofits in obvious partisan fashion \u2014 and then Facebook itself is censoring information about Joe Biden, about Hunter Biden in the weeks before the election. Unclear that any company should be able to have that much power. I don\u2019t think you get to swing elections because you\u2019re a giant multinational corporation. And so it\u2019s unclear to me that Facebook should be allowed to have Facebook classic and Instagram and WhatsApp \u2014 and own these discrete businesses that each efficiently mine all this data about people to roll it up into one central location just so it can turn around and use that data against people to serve them targeted advertising.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Adding that \u201ccorporate concentration of power can violate people\u2019s liberties just as much as government can,\u201d Masters stated that he would like \u201cmore visibility\u201d into \u201cthe algorithms\u201d that companies like Google use.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe know what Facebook did in the 2020 election, and that\u2019s bad enough. But we know because their censorship was transparent. I really worry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In July, 35-year-old Blake Masters, who is Chief Operating Officer of Thiel Capital and president of The Thiel Foundation, announced his candidacy for Senate in Arizona.Should Masters win the Republican primary next August, he will face off against Democratic Senator Mark Kelley in November 2022. According to a third-quarter Federal Elections Commission (FEC) filing, Masters has raised more than $1.1 million.On Monday, I had the opportunity to speak with Masters about a variety of topics, including big tech censorship. I also spoke with Masters about the border, which you can check out here (and the full Blake Masters interview will be released on Sunday).With some politicians wanting to eliminate Section 230, others wanting to refine it, and still others who believe that anti-trust is the answer to big tech regulation, I asked Masters what he believes should be done about the issue.He replied, stating that a radical reformation of Section 230, or stripping \u201cthe protection from liability from these companies,\u201d is not off the table.\u201cIf they want to act like publishers, we\u2019ll treat them like publishers,\u201d Masters said. \u201cYou don\u2019t get platform immunity if you\u2019re actually putting your thumb on the scale and censoring content and acting like a publisher.\u201dThe Senate candidate then spoke about anti-trust:Facebook is going to be this giant multinational corporation; if they\u2019re going to actively intervene in elections, either because their founder is spending $400 million, you know, to distribute to various nonprofits in obvious partisan fashion \u2014 and then Facebook itself is censoring information about Joe Biden, about Hunter Biden in the weeks before the election. Unclear that any company should be able to have that much power. I don\u2019t think you get to swing elections because you\u2019re a giant multinational corporation. And so it\u2019s unclear to me that Facebook should be allowed to have Facebook classic and Instagram and WhatsApp \u2014 and own these discrete businesses that each efficiently mine all this data about people to roll it up into one central location just so it can turn around and use that data against people to serve them targeted advertising.Adding that \u201ccorporate concentration of power can violate people\u2019s liberties just as much as government can,\u201d Masters stated that he would like \u201cmore visibility\u201d into \u201cthe algorithms\u201d that companies like Google use.\u201cWe know what Facebook did in the 2020 election, and that\u2019s bad enough. But we know because their censorship was transparent. I really worry about Google, and their search engine algorithms, which are not transparent,\u201d Masters said. \u201cThe government doesn\u2019t know how they may or may not change those algorithms in the weeks before an election. But you could imagine if they\u2019re subtle enough \u2014 could they boost pro-Biden content and suppress pro-Trump content? Absolutely, they could. They\u2019ve got the motive; they\u2019ve got the opportunity.\u201dHe continued, saying that if we don\u2019t get ahold of big tech, \u201cwe\u2019re not going to have free and fair elections in this country; we\u2019re not going to have a First Amendment in this country going forward.\u201dIn a follow-up, I asked Masters the following question: \u201cIf Section 230 is revised to treat these tech companies as publishers rather than platforms, could they simply purge their systems of any content that isn\u2019t left-leaning?\u201dHe replied:Yeah \u2026 I mean, if they did that, I don\u2019t think they\u2019d be able to maintain the massive network effect that they have. If Facebook just wants to become transparently left-wing, I think its user base would shrink dramatically.The danger is, it is the monopoly, it is the only game in town, and they pretend to be neutral while at the same time censoring conservatives so that you can\u2019t even get an alternative built, right? These network effects are very powerful. If you start treating them as publishers, make them liable for the content that they\u2019re hosting, I think they basically wouldn\u2019t do what you just suggested. I don\u2019t think they want to become some left-wing online ghetto. Facebook only works as a business if everybody\u2019s on Facebook.Listen to the full exchange here:Check back with The Daily Wire on Sunday for the full Blake Masters interview.The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a member.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-977906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=977906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=977906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=977906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=977906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}