Why Republicans still aren't serious about social media regulation

It's phony war designed to gin up their base

A toy soldier and a phone.
(Image credit: Illustrated | iStock)

Many on the right never seem to quite grasp the irony of using Facebook and Twitter to constantly kvetch about social media censorship. Or maybe they recognize the irony, but just don't care. Maybe at some level they realize their constant complaining about bias is really just an exercise in absurdist political drama.

This could especially be true of GOP politicians and pundits. Take the uproar over attempts by Facebook and Twitter to limit the spread of a sketchy New York Post article about Hunter Biden. Republicans and other right-wingers were theatrically appalled at an apparent Silicon Valley conspiracy to downplay a potentially explosive story about the son of the current Democratic presidential nominee. Across Facebook and Twitter, Trumpist conservatives were churning out heated hot-takes about the compelling need — now more than ever! — to regulate or break up Facebook and Twitter. As Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri tweeted: "Yeah, sure, @Facebook is lot like a supermarket ... except there's only ONE supermarket in town, and they decide who can and can't shop. That's what we call a monopoly."

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James Pethokoukis

James Pethokoukis is the DeWitt Wallace Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he runs the AEIdeas blog. He has also written for The New York Times, National Review, Commentary, The Weekly Standard, and other places.