Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered his secretary of state to investigate Facebook for allegedly violating the state’s election law.
The order comes following a Wall Street Journal report, detailing how “the tech giant put its thumb on the scale of numerous state and local races by exempting elite users from Faceobook’s own rules,” DeSantis said in a statement Monday, per Just the News.
DeSantis on Monday ordered Florida Secretary of State Laurel M. Lee to investigate, as the violations create a “privileged class of speakers” who are empowered to force their influence on elections.
I am authorizing @FLSecofState and the Florida Department of State to open an investigation into Facebook’s alleged election interference through its whitelisting program.
Floridians deserve to know how much Big Tech has influenced our elections. pic.twitter.com/rmGmZ6BK6T— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) September 27, 2021
“While most people are subject to arbitrary censorship at the whims of so-called fact-checkers, Facebook grants select users the freedom to disregard the platform’s own community standards without the threat of enforcement action,” DeSantis said.
“The thought of Facebook clandestinely manipulating elections is an affront to the basic principles of our republic,” he added. “We the people have the right to choose our representatives, whether or not Silicon Valley approves.”