Miami—Critics of the law say it’s unconstitutional, that it doesn’t have the muster to pass a legal challenge in court, but by signing Senate Bill 7072, Gov. Ron DeSantis poked his finger in the eye of Big Tech and garnered himself more credibility amongst the Republican faithful who were enraged when former President Donald Trump was deplatformed earlier this year.
Right now, Gov. DeSantis can do no wrong in the eyes of most Floridian, as the first term governor is enjoying meteoric job approval. Now tech companies like Facebook and Twitter will be fined $100,000 per day when they deplatform a political candidate.
Big Tech is not the friend of Conservatives and Republicans, as many individuals who identify as being the aforementioned have complained of being censored and banned by at least one social media platform.
One of those individuals is Conservative Journalist and congressional candidate Laura Loomer, who put out a statement thanking DeSantis for signing the bill, but then pointed out that the bill doesn’t go as far as she would like, saying that the “bill does not provide protection for me as an already de-platformed Florida congressional candidate, and it will not protect President Trump if he decides to run for President again in 2024.”
“I want to thank the Governor of the Great State of Florida, Ron DeSantis, who truly understands that Big Tech tyranny is an existential threat to our Constitutional Republic, to free and fair elections, and to free speech – which is the bedrock of our Constitution…Unfortunately, the bill does not provide protection for me as an already de-platformed Florida congressional candidate, and it will not protect President Trump if he decides to run for President again in 2024. These concerns are raised because the proposed amendments my team provided Florida legislators to make the bill retroactive were not added to the bill. However, I am hopeful that these amendments can be made during a special session for the sake of further strengthening the bill and making it flagship legislation that can be replicated in other states around the nation,” stated Loomer,
Rep. Blaise Ingoglia, the author of the House version of the bill, recently told The Floridian that how the bill is written, it will weather any legal challenge.
One Florida legislator, who asked that we no attribute this comment to him/her, said that it would “not be helpful to Gov. DeSantis if a weighed down tech bill was defeated in the courts.”
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To be fair, Big Tech is not all that bad. Platforms like Facebook do help a lot of online businesses draw traffic to their websites and their brick and mortar shops, but the stigma that is out to censor anyone they feel does not align with its political views still exists.
Florida Democrats do not support the bill (of course) and are also calling it “unconstitutional” and that its sole focus is to “strip private businesses like Twitter and Facebook from deciding what is acceptable on their own platforms.”
After losing just about every seat they ran for statewide, Florida Democrats are naturally targeting DeSantis in the 2022 midterm election, and considering how poorly all three of their potential gubernatorial candidates —Reps. Charlie Crist and Val Demings, and AG Commissioner Nikki Fried— are doing in a head-to-head with DeSantis, no one is second-guessing their political ambitions.
It’s politics, and Democrats are just licking their wounds and hoping that Florida Republicans and DeSantis don’t continue to pull the scabs off.
Florida becomes the first state in the nation to pass legislation to take on Big Tech. Now we wait for the court challenges.
