A trio of pro-Trump groups are ready to wage a massive battle against Silicon Valley titans of industry after the former president was drummed off social media prior to leaving office.
“The Center for American Restoration, the new organization stood up by former Trump administration official Russ Vought, is leading a coalition of groups calling for a ‘proliferation of legislative activity’ to reform Big Tech,” Axios reported.
Vought headed former president Donald J. Trump’s Office of Management and Budget.
The group has a policy advocacy arm, a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organization called America Restoration Action, according to an earlier Axios report.
The Center for American Restoration is joined by two other conservative groups in advocating for legislative action against Big Tech.
“The organizations signing on include Jim DeMint’s Conservative Partnership Institute, Mike Davis’ Internet Accountability Project, and L. Brent Bozell III’s Media Research Center,” according to the report.
DeMint, a Republican, is a former U.S. Senator from South Carolina.
The Internet Accountability Project describes itself thusly:
We are conservatives who are alarmed by the role Big Tech plays in our society. We are concerned by the political and economic harms Big Tech platforms such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon are inflicting on Americans. These harms include negative content, conservative bias, privacy violations, anticompetitive conduct, and employee abuses. We formed Internet Accountability Project in order to speak out against Big Tech before it is too late.
The leaders for the Center for American Restoration, typically free market capitalists, have emphasized that they believe the power that Big Tech wields over American discourse is more dangerous than regulating the Big Tech companies, which could be viewed as contrary to the values of free market capitalists.
“Conservatives have long been skeptical of government intervention in the free market, and such skepticism remains critical in the fights to come for our movement,” the group wrote in a letter last week addressed to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and the Republican members of Congress.
“This is a perilous moment for our democracy,” the letter said. “For generations, conservatives have warned of the dangers to liberty posed by government overreach. Yet today, the greatest threat to free speech and democratic deliberation comes from the private sector: the consolidated corporate power in control of our most important online speech platforms.”
“Accordingly, we welcome the proliferation of legislative activity in the area of big tech reform,” the letter ended.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a contributor at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
