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Governor Ron DeSantis and legislative leaders are going to war with big tech social media companies who they say have played fast and loose with the public square.

Companies who don’t treat everyone the same could face big fines.

In his 2018 race for Agriculture Commissioner, Republican Matt Caldwell paid Facebook to run a campaign ad showing his support of the 2nd Amendment.
Instead, it was blocked for a day.

“We were being prevented from talking about a fairly straight forward American value,” said Caldwell in a 2018 interview.

Now, pointing to the most recent election, the Governor and legislative leaders want to hold the five tech giants accountable for their decisions.

“We’re looking at protecting privacy. We’re looking at protecting people from being censored and deplatformed. And we are looking at protecting people from election interference,” said Governor Ron DeSantis.

As proposed, the legislation would allow individual consumers and the Attorney General to file lawsuits against big tech companies for blocking users or failing to follow their own terms of service.

It would also fine big tech $100,000 a day for de-platforming political candidates.

“When it comes to elections in Florida, big tech should stay out of it,” said DeSantis.

Senate President Wilton Simpson called the censorship one-sided.

“Lets be clear. They are targeting conservatives,” said Simpson.

Florida currently holds about $8 billion in big tech stocks, but calls to divest those stocks appear to be going nowhere.

“And they have market caps that this would be a drop in the bucket,” said DeSantis.

Agriculture Commissioner and Top-elected state Democrat Nikki Fried believes big tech has become a monopoly.

“Big tech has gotten too big,” said Fried.

But she said the GOP’s motivation is misguided.

“This is politics,” said Fried.

House Speaker Chris Sprowls believes Florida’s legislation can make a difference.

“They don’t have to tell people what they are doing or why they are doing it. Under our bill, they have to,” said Sprowls.

Even the Governor acknowledged Florida is just one state, but he said he hoped other states would be emboldened.