Elon Musk, who owns X, formerly Twitter, and other companies, called for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to retire on Friday after he joined with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to introduce a bill regulating Big Tech companies including social media.
"Our Digital Consumer Protection Commission Act would create an independent, bipartisan regulator charged with licensing and policing the nation’s biggest tech companies — like Meta, Google and Amazon — to prevent online harm, promote free speech and competition, guard Americans' privacy and protect national security," the bipartisan duo wrote in a New York Times opinion piece. "The new watchdog would focus on the unique threats posed by tech giants while strengthening the tools available to the federal agencies and state attorneys general who have authority to regulate Big Tech."
Musk responded to a Richard Hanania tweet that said, "Elizabeth Warren and Lindsey Graham call for a new agency to regulate the internet. They see the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as a model because it 'took on nuclear power,' ie, shut it down. Anyone who cares about progress needs to work and stop this."
Musk tweeted, "Time for Lindsey Graham to retire," in response to Hanania's tweet.
No one argues that Big Tech needs regulating, except maybe Musk and the other CEOs of these companies, which undoubtedly want to do what they want to do without interference.
Everyone else recognizes that this isn't working great, but what Warren wants to do about it is probably radically different than what Graham wants to do.
Why Graham would think adding layers of bureaucracy would be helpful is incomprehensible, but at age 68, he's not likely to retire soon.
After all, Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is still there at 89, freezing up on the floor, and falling down at fundraising dinners, and no one is telling him to retire.
Any government intervention in Big Tech is likely to make things worse rather than better, and Graham should know this. Government is not the answer to any of our problems, and thinking it could be makes you part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
We definitely don't want the same deep state operatives who ignore Democrat wrongdoing and prosecute Republicans for the same crimes to have power over social media, do we? Lindsey Graham, you really should know better.
