GOP leaders break up with Big Tech
DeSantis leading push to penalize and regulate titans
TALLAHASSEE — Florida Republicans have fallen out of love with Big Tech.
Gov. Ron DeSantis is leading a push to penalize and regulate tech titans Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook and Twitter for what they described as censoring conservative views, commodifying personal data and blurring privacy lines while dominating public discourse — to the cheers of his Republican base.
But it wasn’t long ago that Florida Republicans, led by DeSantis’ predecessor Rick Scott, courted companies like Amazon and Google, passing laws to help them develop new technologies and giving them taxpayer funds to invest in the Sunshine State.
The change has been swift, as DeSantis follows former President Donald Trump’s grievances against Twitter and Facebook. The two companies booted Trump off their platforms after he helped incite the Jan. 6 insurrection aimed at halting the certification of the election he lost.
“Are consumers going
to have the choice to consume the information they choose? Or are oligarchs in Silicon Valley going to make those choices for us?” DeSantis said earlier this month when he unveiled his proposal to crack down on Big Tech censorship. “No group of people should exercise such power, especially not tech billionaires in northern California.”
GOP voters seem to be responding favorably.
At an event in Palm Beach County on Friday, DeSantis’ mention of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg drew boos from the Republican crowd. His handling of the pandemic and frequent Fox News appearances to tout his tech crackdown plans have helped inch him up the early standings among 2024 GOP presidential primary hopefuls.
DeSantis’ proposals, though, run counter to how Florida Republicans courted major tech firms in the previous decade.
Florida lawmakers have passed legislation to allow for the testing of automated vehicles on Florida roads, just as Google was testing that technology. And since 2013, the state has inked deals with Amazon to secure development in the state, paying the online retail giant $3.4 million in taxpayer money to secure 3,855 jobs, according to state records.
GOP leaders in 2017 passed a bill creating uniform rules throughout the state to accommodate Uber and Lyft and lauded the new tech companies while touting Florida as a state with low regulations where innovation can thrive.
At the time, Scott and the Legislature were focused on getting more jobs in the state as it continued to recover from the Great Recession. Tallahassee’s tech lovefest continued, however, and last year lawmakers passed a bill to help pave the way for financial technology firms to come to Florida.
In 2019, Scott wrote to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, urging him to move its second headquarters to Florida after U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., derided the taxpayer incentive package to bring it to New York City.
“Don’t let anti-business leaders in New York stifle your efforts to expand and create jobs and opportunity for thousands of hard-working Americans,” Scott wrote. “Bring HQ2 to a state that appreciates and respects the work that you do — Florida.”
Yet as Trump melded the base of the GOP with his personal brand over the last five years, Republicans have taken on his personal grievances with Big Tech, culminating with his removal from Twitter, Facebook and other platforms after his role in the insurrection, as an attack on them, too.
DeSantis has pointed to Trump’s removal from the platforms, along with the moves by Apple and Amazon to remove Parler, an upstart conservative competitor with Twitter, from their app stores and webhosting platforms, as the breaking points. The Big Tech firms, he said, were putting their thumb on the scale and squashing conservative voices in ways that have implications for the outcome of elections.
“We’re told that these are private companies and those who disagree with their decisions to regulate content and even suppress content can simply choose other services,” DeSantis said. “Well, when 2.8 million Americans chose to download the application Parler and share information with friends, family and colleagues, what was the result of that? Cancelled by Amazon, Google and Apple.”
Some House lawmakers got their first look at one of the bills pushed by DeSantis on Wednesday when the Commerce Committee pored over a draft bill aimed at imposing transparency standards on the major tech companies, with fines and penalties for noncompliance.
“The problem is these social media platforms have gotten so big and they act as monopolies,” said Rep. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, chairman of the panel who is sponsoring the bill. “It’s right for us to start really questioning some of these business practices and what they’re doing, and I think Floridians will be better off for that.”
The bill would require social media platforms to post standards for removing content or banning customers, give notice before changing the standards, give reasons for banning users or censoring content within 30 days and apply the rules equally. Users would be allowed to opt-out of algorithms that boost or suppress certain content, and content posted by politicians or candidates would be exempt from techniques to suppress their posts.
Attorney General Ashley Moody would be able to bring claims under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, with each violation carrying a $10,000 fine. Moody would also have subpoena power to investigate violations, and companies suspected of violating the law would be temporarily suspended from receiving new contracts with the state.
Big Tech companies would also be unable to receive taxpayer incentives from the state or local governments for economic development projects.
DeSantis is also pushing a bill to protect Floridians’ privacy and data collected by Big Tech firms, which would let users request the companies delete the data collected on them and opt out of the sale of their information to others.
Not all Republicans are on board with the swerve against Big Tech.
Sen. Jeff Brandes, who sponsored the automated vehicle testing bill and has championed measures to remove or soften regulations that would inhibit tech companies, is skeptical of the move to impose restrictions on Big Tech.
“It’s a knee-jerk reaction,” said Brandes, R-St. Petersburg. “All I know is I’ve spent my legislative career trying to shrink government, not grow it. I try to give more freedoms to people, not take their freedoms away.”
That skepticism, however, isn’t likely to stop GOP leaders from passing the bills this year. Senate President Wilton Simpson acknowledged Thursday it was “more of a federal issue.”
But, he added, “there are things that the governor has outlined and the speaker have outlined that we can do as a state.”