DeSantis orders Florida official to investigate Facebook for 'alleged election interference'
09/27/21 04:12 PM EDT
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has instructed Secretary of State Laurel Lee to investigate Facebook for "alleged election interference."
The investigation follows The Wall Street Journal's explosive report entitled The Facebook Files, which said that, among multiple other accusations, some VIP users were exempt from the social media giant's policies during the 2020 election under a program called "cross check." According to the Journal's report, millions of those users — mostly celebrities, journalists and politicians — were not subject to Facebook's usual standards of behavior.
"It’s no secret that Big Tech censors have long enforced their own rules inconsistently," DeSantis said in a press release. "If this new report is true, Facebook has violated Florida law to put its thumb on the scale of numerous state and local races. Floridians deserve to know how much this corporate titan has influenced our elections."
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DeSantis's release said that, if the Journal's reporting proves to be accurate, Facebook created "a privileged class of speakers and has empowered them to manipulate our elections with impunity."
"We do not know where exactly this alleged electioneering occurred, and the scope is known only to Facebook," DeSantis's press secretary Christina Pushaw said in an email to The Hill. "That’s why Governor DeSantis ordered this investigation. If Facebook’s double standards amounted to interference in state and local races in Florida, then Floridians deserve to know the extent of it."
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/574143-desantis-orders-florida-official-to-investigate-facebook-for-alleged