Controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) opposed the House bill that would make a Chinese company sell its stake in TikTok or be banned in the U.S. during a speech on Wednesday. Greene criticized Facebook, echoing former President Donald Trump’s recent conversion on TikTok.
“I stand today as the only member of Congress to ever be banned by social media,” Greene began, adding:
On January 2nd of 2022, Twitter banned me. Banned my personal account on which I was campaigning for Congress, raising money and using my free speech to inform the voters in my district they can vote for me. This was not by a company owned by China.
This was by American-owned Twitter. This came on the heels of our own United States government working with Big Tech and working with social media companies to censor and ban Americans free speech. I believe that this bill can cause future problems. It’s opening Pandora’s Box and I’m opposed to this bill. Most Americans don’t trust the United States government because of our experience dealing with it. Never forget that the United States government also was the one that provided the Russia hoax to Americans. It also worked to ban Americans’ free speech. It also has worked in so many ways to illegally warrantless spy on Americans through FISA.
After criticizing the U.S., Greene then listed some other ways she would resist Chinese influence domestically:
If we wanted to be serious about stopping a foreign adversary, if we wanted to be serious about stopping China, we would stop China from buying our U.S. farmland. We would, we would raise up our American energy independence. We would also stop the Green New Deal and not rely on China, who owns and operates 85% of the battery market worldwide. There are dangers that lie ahead in this. This is really about controlling Americans data. And if we cared about Americans data, then we would stop the sale of Americans data universally, not just with China. There’s some further issues. This is a Pandora’s box.
“What’s to prevent Congress or the U.S. government in the future from making another social media company sell, claiming it’s protecting Americans data from foreign enemies?” she continued, stating:
I think we could see in the future another Russia, Russia, Russia, and possibly force the sale of X, as many members in this body claim that Elon Musk is altering the algorithms of X. By the way, it was Elon Musk purchase of X that restored my social media account on Twitter and allowed me to have my free speech back on Twitter. There’s also members of this body, the Democrats are claiming that election meddling can happen on social media. Well, we could never forget Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. We can never forget the election meddling that happened there. And by the way, American owned Facebook and Instagram is where most of the garbage, like the gender lies and the woke lies exist. Many Americans and many teenagers believe awful things, and they don’t just see them on TikTok, they see them on Facebook and Instagram too.
I don’t think this will accomplish what the goal is to accomplish. So there’s other concerns. I think here is that when the government moves into forcing the sale of of TikTok, who is going to buy it? That’s the question that we should be asking.
Who is going to buy it? Who will be the next to control the data of over 170 million Americans? Are we going to trust Mark Zuckerberg to control their data? I certainly don’t. By the way, most of the time my posts on Facebook are shadow band, and I certainly don’t have the reach on that social media account. I think that there’s many other ways to protect data, and I think this body is capable of it.
The bill ultimately passed the House with overwhelming bipartisan support, 352 to 65. Greene was joined by squad members, like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN,) in voting against the measure.
Watch the clip above.
