Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R-CO) issued a press release on Thursday announcing that she introduced the Exposing Lewd Outlays for Social Networking Companies Act, or the ELON Act, to audit Big Tech’s collusion with the government to censor Americans. The ELON Act also puts a year’s moratorium on FBI payments to tech companies.
“Big tech is in bed with the FBI and other agencies to the point where Congress can’t tell where one ends and the other begins,” Boebert said in the release. “The millions of dollars sent to Twitter that we know of during an election cycle, when they were at the same time censoring the Hunter Biden laptop from hell, is incredibly concerning.”
Boebert continued. “My bill, the ELON Act, requires a report from all agencies on federal dollars sent to big tech companies. My legislation also places a one-year moratorium on tax dollars going to big tech companies,” she explained. “We must expose the incestuous relationship between big tech and the federal government. My bill does exactly that.”
The press release cited the Twitter Files revelations that the Justice Department (DOJ) and FBI worked directly with Big Tech to censor content, most notably the 2020 New York Post Hunter Biden laptop story. A Media Research Center poll found that Big Tech censorship of the Hunter scandal helped steal the 2020 election for Joe Biden.
Boebert’s press release particularly slammed the FBI’s more than $3.4 million payout to Twitter allegedly to cover “reimbursement” for the “reasonable costs and expenses associated with their response to a legal process.” But Twitter wasn’t the only platform thus reimbursed, per FBI officials.
The congresswoman quoted Elon Musk who tweeted that, “Government paid Twitter millions of dollars to censor info from the public.”
The press release explained that the ELON Act would require the US Comptroller General to submit a report on all the DOJ payments made to Twitter, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Apple since Jan. 1, 2015. The report would then be submitted to the House Judiciary, Oversight and Accountability, and Intelligence Committees and the Senate Judiciary, Commerce, and Intelligence Committees.
“American tax dollars should not be used to stifle the First Amendment,” the press release insisted. “Congress must investigate when and why the FBI was paying off Big Tech platforms.”
The ELON Act’s cosponsors are Rep. Matt Gaetz (FL-01), Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (FL-13), Rep. Paul Gosar (AZ-09), Byron Donalds (FL-19), Rep. Mary Miller (IL-15), Rep. Eric Burlison (MO-07), Barry Moore (AL-02), Andrew Clyde (GA-09), and Rep. Troy Nehls (TX-22).
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that government agencies and Big Tech be held to account to uphold the First Amendment while providing transparencyand equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
