Buck on Friday reacted to former President Donald Trump filing multiple lawsuits against Big Tech companies last week for attempting to “impose illegal and unconstitutional government censorship” on users. He appeared on Fox News on Friday to tout House lawmakers for pushing through a package of six bills last month that would uncoil anti-competitive Silicon Valley mergers and make it easier for users to move their own data from one company to another.
“I understand that there are my fellow conservatives out there that say we don’t want to make Big Government bigger in an attempt to deal with Big Tech,” Buck told Fox News. “But we have to deal with Big Tech because they are out of control and they are going to hurt America in the long run.”
Buck and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy are among several top Republicans who say they support increasing the size, antitrust power and financial strength of federal agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Justice Department, in order to break up Big Tech companies.
“We have to work on the monopoly laws…and to make sure we introduce competition into the marketplace and make sure that we have five or six Facebooks, and three or four Googles and enough so that our message as conservatives can get out,” Buck said, highlighting the GOP-leaning portions of the congressional bills.
Two pieces of legislation currently being promoted by Buck and several Democratic lawmakers include the Merger Filing Fee Authorization Act and the State Antitrust Enforcement Venue Act—both of which would make tech mergers more difficult and allow state and federal officials more power to intervene as a means of promoting competition.
But another bill receiving more pushback, the ACCESS Act, has seen bipartisan critics emerge, including Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan and California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell. These lawmakers claim the ACCESS Act would make it easier for U.S. tech companies to transfer American user data to Chinese or Russian companies.
Generally, the ACCESS Act would easily allow a user to leave a service such as Facebook and go to a new one. They could take some or even all of their data with them to another service, but still maintain the ability to interact with friends, customers and social media communities on the old service.
Buck warned that the Big Tech breakup, antitrust push and censorship problems should frighten people of all political affiliations.
“And frankly, the liberals should be scared to death about censorship because they are next. If what they say is displeasing to these corporate executives, they will be censored also, so you see a bipartisan effort in Congress to make sure we have more competition and hold these Big Tech companies accountable,” Buck said on Fox News.
The congressman conceded to The Verge last week that he was wrong to believe “the market will take care of” creating competition within Silicon Valley.
Newsweek reached out to Buck’s office for comment.
