Landmark Legislation Would Give Americans Control Over Their Personal Data and Create Accountability for Algorithmic Amplification of Dangerous Disinformation and Violence

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) today introduced the Big Tech Accountability Act, landmark legislation developed with Free Speech For People to protect Americans’ online privacy and personal autonomy and hold powerful technology corporations accountable for the harms caused by their platforms.

A handful of Big Tech corporations have gained extraordinary control over modern communication and commerce while amassing enormous quantities of Americans’ personal information. Their business models profit from collecting and monetizing that data and from algorithms designed to maximize engagement—including by artificially amplifying dangerous disinformation, division, and violence. The current algorithmic model incentivizes and profits from the amplification of threats of violence and disinformation that can have deadly ramifications in the real world.

The Big Tech Accountability Act offers Congress a comprehensive framework for addressing both threats: protecting Americans from the commercial exploitation of their personal information while establishing meaningful accountability when technology companies amplify fraudulent disinformation and criminal violence.

“Big Tech companies have an enormous amount of power over what we see, what we share, and what happens to our personal information—and for too long, the rules governing that power simply haven’t kept pace,” said Congressman McGovern. “These platforms should not get a free pass to exploit people’s private data or design systems that knowingly push dangerous content because outrage and division are good for business. This bill is an effort to put some reasonable guardrails in place, give people more control over their own information, and make sure enormously powerful corporations can be held accountable for the choices they make.”

“By protecting the biggest social media companies from accountability, current federal law allows them to profit with impunity from amplifying threats of violence and disinformation and exploiting personal information,” said Ben Clements, Chairman and Senior Legal Advisor of Free Speech For People. “While this model has made billions for the world’s largest corporations and their owners, it has come at a grave cost to our democracy, to the ability of government to function in the 21st Century, and to the dignity, safety, and privacy of our people. By subjecting the big social media companies to the same accountability that applies to the rest of us, the Big Tech Accountability Act is a long overdue step toward putting people, not corporations and billionaires, first.”

“We applaud Congressman McGovern for introducing this landmark legislation to hold big tech companies accountable,” said John Bonifaz, Co-Founder and President of Free Speech For People. “For too long, we have allowed big tech corporations to operate with unchecked power, amplifying threats of violence and disinformation based on a business model which profits off of that amplification. The Big Tech Accountability Act will end this unchecked power and will protect our democracy.”

“The federal government has failed to keep up with the needed regulation of big tech, which has dominated the way the public communicates and receives information. Big tech’s business model of amplifying violent and dangerous content is not only harmful to our communities but is harmful to our democratic republic,” said Alexandra Flores-Quilty, Campaign Director of Free Speech For People. “The Big Tech Accountability Act is a transformative bill that can establish needed accountability and safety to social media and big tech, fit for the 21st century.”

The legislation would establish new protections designed to give internet users greater control over their personal information and limit the ability of technology companies to exploit that information for profit. It would also establish accountability for social media companies when their systems target and amplify dangerous content, rather than treating the companies as passive conduits for material their own algorithms actively promote.

Free Speech For People originally developed the Big Tech Accountability Act as model federal legislation to provide Congress with a roadmap for protecting internet users, voters, and communities from these growing threats.

To read Rep. McGovern’s press release announcing the introduction of the Big Tech Accountability Act, click here.

To read the text of the Big Tech Accountability Act, click here.