A Republican legal expert condemned Big Tech, particularly Amazon, for not only crushing speech but also helping a foreign government supersede U.S. companies.
Article III Project founder and lawyer Mike Davis called out anti-liberty tech giants while speaking on a panel at the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). “We have a problem with Big Tech — Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple have gatekeeping power in this country over information and commerce, and they use that gatekeeping power to silence conservatives and crush small businesses,” Davis insisted. Amazon in particular not only tramples free speech but also helps Communist China profit at Americans’ expense.
Davis introduced his comments by praising Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for fighting Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple — the censorship-obsessed and monopolistic Big Tech companies. Indeed, Davis mentioned how Google uses its ad revenue “to promote their woke agenda and they use that money to cancel conservatives,” something Paxton legally combatted.
Woke tech companies also target pro-free speech competition, Davis added. For example, Google and Apple united to cancel the Parler app from their app stores. But social media censorship and even financial censorship do not paint the full picture of Big Tech’s un-American efforts.
Davis turned to one U.S. tech giant’s worrisome China ties. “Amazon is essentially China’s shopping mall, right? They do China’s bidding, they’re crushing small businesses in America, and they’re making a lot of money doing that,” he said. “Amazon has this great image in America, and we need to change that because, again, if you think of Amazon, think of China.” An increasing number of Chinese sellers use Amazon, and all China’s companies answer to the government, where “private” is a relative word.
Amazon has been accused of undermining other businesses by allegedly suspending sellers’ accounts and seizing and later selling their goods, imitating and trying to out-sell third-party products, and downranking listings in favor of their own brand. Shockingly, Amazon has been accused of partnering with the Communist Chinese government more than once, including reportedly working with China’s propaganda arm.
In 2022, Chinese state media China Daily reported on Amazon’s increasing efforts to “cash in on China's cross-border e-commerce.” More recently, Yahoo! Finance explained how major Chinese brands use Amazon Web Services (AWS) to go global. Analyst organization ECommerceDB, which boasts of benefiting Amazon and Google, reported in January that China-based sellers had a growing presence on Amazon.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency and an 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.
