Recently, some of the country’s most prominent conservative politicians spoke in Orlando, Fla. at the National Conservatism Conference. The dangerous rise of socialism and the overreach of our government quickly took center stage. I was shocked to hear Republican senators argue that the solution to socialism and big government is more government. Especially, greater government control of social media. We need to tread lightly when we work to rein in the platforms that serve as a digital venue for free speech and democratic values across the world.
The Florida legislature’s plans to regulate social media platforms are very concerning to me. I understand the frustrations felt by my fellow Republicans toward overzealous tech firms. Still, those regulations will also extend to social media platforms that we love, such as Truth, the new platform that President Donald Trump designed for people like us that believe in freedom.
We only need to look 90 miles off the coast of Miami to see how social media can be used to foster democracy and fight extremism. For more than six decades, the socialist Castro regime has ruled Cuba. They cemented their power by expanding the government and controlling the narrative with state-run media. However, recently Cubans have used social media platforms to promote democracy and push back on Castro-era Communism.
Last summer, Floridians watched on their phones and laptops as Cuban democratic activists took to Twitter to share their grievances against socialism and Communism. Cubans turned to social media in a country where news is tightly controlled and crackdowns against government criticism are common. They coordinated and organized online to protest socialism and to demand democracy—the Cuban government could only quiet the protests by shutting off access to the internet.
Cuba is not the only country where activists have used social media to share democratic ideals and coordinate protests against oppressive governments. Protesters in Hong Kong used Facebook and Twitter extensively in their efforts to resist the Chinese Communist Party. In 2011, a viral Facebook post sparked the sentiment that ejected Hosni Mubarak, the autocratic leader of Egypt, from power.
I do not oppose laws and regulations that govern social media companies. The CEOs of social media giants like Twitter and Google have asked the federal government to rework and modernize the legislation that protects privacy and free speech online. Unfortunately, legislatures across the country, and here in Florida, have proposed a series of bills that would regulate tech firms and remove an effective tool that promotes freedom.
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio argued at the National Conservatism Conference that “people do not want a woke socialist America. It leaves them with no voice in our politics and no answers to their problems.” Rubio is right. As the daughter of Cuban immigrants, I know firsthand just how dangerous socialism and government overreach can be and that the freedom we have to spread ideas and quick communication through the use of social media are the best tools we have to protect American ideals and stop extremism.
