Lindsey Graham: Social Media Companies Should 'Have a License That Can Be Taken Away'

GRAHAM: “I don’t see him getting prosecuted but I do see understanding what happened. Maybe some people getting fired because they missed the obvious. This Twitter stuff, Google, this is as big a story as how Covid started. Because what they’ve done at Twitter and other social media outlets is suppress the other side of the story. Every time a scientist would come forward to suggest maybe it came out of a lab or that we’re not following the science, that we’re overdoing it, that we’re going too far, they were shut down. So the real story for me is that the social media companies that exist today, Google, Twitter, all of these —“

FAULKNER: “Facebook.”

GRAHAM: “Facebook. They’re unregulated and you can’t sue them. They are the largest companies in the history of the world and a consumer has no recourse. We need to fix that.”

FAULKNER: “And is that in part because of Section 230?”

GRAHAM: “Yes.”

FAULKNER: “So that’s been talked about. So will Republicans finally do something with that and do you think you can get it through in the Senate?”

GRAHAM: “Okay. Suing Twitter. You know, if somebody says something bad about me and they use Twitter, I can sue Twitter if it’s a lie. Suppressing information about my campaign, not putting my ads, putting them in the dumpster, I can bring lawsuits. But the more important thing to me is the regulatory commission. You have to have a license to sell real estate, to open up a TV station, to run a radio station. These companies should have a license that can be taken away.”

FAULKNER: “So that’s so interesting hearing that from a Republican. Because usually you want less government but you say in this instance what is the exception?”

GRAHAM: “Okay, here’s the deal. To get a license you have to have privacy protection. A license requirement would be that if you take my content down I can appeal your decision as a social media company to somebody outside the company because I’m a consumer. Young girls are being driven to websites just to make money. There’s a mental health abuse here by these algorithms. The social media companies are doing a lot of damage to young teenage girls. And we need a licensing requirement to prevent that and to empower parents.”