On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria,” FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr responded to concerns about new Twitter Owner and CEO Elon Musk’s business in China by arguing that we shouldn’t “rely on the hopefully benevolence of a billionaire when it comes to a social media platform like this” and Congress implementing “pro-speech guardrails to protect diversity of opinions” would lessen or completely take care of these concerns.
Newsweek Deputy Opinion Editor Batya Ungar-Sargon asked, “My question is, Elon Musk…Owner and CEO of Twitter currently, this is a man who is deeply connected to China, deeply connected to the Chinese Communist Party. His entire supply chain is in China. All of the batteries for Tesla are created there. He built a showroom for Tesla in the Xinjiang region where the genocide of the Uyghurs is happening. So, this is a man who is very, very into bending the knee to China. I mean, isn’t there a worry — don’t the same worries that apply to TikTok to some degree apply now to Twitter as well?”
Carr responded, “Well, I think Elon Musk has staked out a pretty clear line that he’s going to be pro-free speech, pro-diversity of opinion, but to your point, there [are] a lot of people that are critical of him, whether it’s the points that you raised there or people worried about him having too much control over the free flow of information on Twitter. And that’s why my position has been we should not simply rely on the hopefully benevolence of a billionaire when it comes to a social media platform like this that is effectively the digital town square. That’s why my position has always been we need to step in, I think Congress needs to, with pro-speech guardrails to protect diversity of opinions on Twitter, on social media and I think that would mitigate or address entirely these types of concerns that are being raised.”
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