The Sconi

Social media censorship has been a popular topic of conversation, especially amongst conservatives, who claim that their social media posts are being unfairly censored or profiles banned for voicing their political opinion. 

Social media companies have taken a more aggressive approach lately to limiting the engagement and reach of accounts and posts of those that they find to be spreading misinformation or what they consider to be inflammatory content on their platform. 

In response, State Sen. Julian Bradley from Franklin, Wisconsin has introduced a law that would aim at leveling the playing field when it comes to social media and ensure that social media companies are not able to limit the reach of people that express views that the company disagrees with. 

Bradley gave a recent interview to 1130 WISN's Jay Weber, expressing his position on the topic.

“Free expression is one of the most vital components of our democratic republic. That’s why I’m authoring a bill to hold Big Tech social media companies accountable," he said.

Bradley is joining forces with other State Sens. Steve Nass, Cody Horlacher, Calvin Callahan and others to push support for a bill that would require large social media companies to publish their moderation and content standards publicly for everyone to see. In addition, it would require that those companies apply those standards consistently to all users, regardless of their political party. Finally, it would require the companies to send a notification to the user or account when they take action on their content or block their posts. 

Upon voicing their support for the bill, the senators released a memo saying, “As these platforms become more involved with political discussion, Big Tech has too often used its power to censor and stifle the free exchange of ideas, even booting users off their sites for legitimate political discourse. As a result, people all across the political spectrum have seen social media throttle and cancel legitimate free speech actions.”

If passed, the bill would apply to social media platforms that have a gross annual revenue of $100 million or more, or 20,000 users per month. Companies that are found to be in violation of the bill would be forced to pay a fine ranging from $100,000 to $250,000 per proven offense, in addition to any applicable punitive damages and attorney fees.