U.S. Sen. Graham Mulls Licensing Social Media Platforms

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who has been oft-critical of social media companies, said he wants to regulate and maybe license the companies, including big names like Meta’s Facebook or Twitter, Reuters wrote.

Graham said he’s working on a measure with Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Josh Hawley (R-MO). Graham, Warren and Hawley did not respond to requests for comment from PYMNTS.

Graham, speaking at a hearing to discuss security lapses at Twitter, said companies had been able to become “internationally powerful” without much restrictions on what they were allowed to do.

He also said he had concerns that there were few tools the Federal Trade Commission could use to rein them in — he said they’re not licensed and “you can’t sue them.” He added that “if you drive a car, you need a license, if you sell real estate, you need a license.”

The plan he has might involve regulations with limits on what speech the companies could take down and regulating them to be tougher about criminal use of the networks and foreign interference.

Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have critiqued the big tech companies, with some of the concerns being antitrust and the lack of oversight.

Criticism of big tech is nothing new and isn’t restricted to Congress. Recently, more than a dozen tech companies offering alternatives to the big tech firms have come out in favor of more regulation against the big tech companies.

Read more: Alternative Tech Companies Back Measure to Rein in Big Tech

PYMNTS recently wrote that DuckDuckGo, which competes with Google and offers a privacy-focused search engine, and Mozilla, which has a long-time internet browser competing with Microsoft, have said they support more regulations.

“Massive tech platforms can exert influence over society and the digital economy because they ultimately have the power to collect, analyze, and monetize exorbitant amounts of personal information,” the companies, and others, wrote in a letter to Congress together. “This is not by accident, as some of the tech giants have intentionally abused their gatekeeper positions to lock users into perpetual surveillance while simultaneously making it difficult to switch to privacy-protective alternatives.”

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