Missouri Senator Josh Hawley On Big Tech: 'We Need To Break Up Their Monopoly Power'

Big Tech has way too much power. When companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple or Amazon can come together and completely silence a group or individual, that level of power is a recipe for disaster.

As that ability becomes more widely used and accepted, the worse it is going to get.

We know OutKick founder Clay Travis has been fighting the Big Tech powers for some time now. Just two months ago, he was on Capitol Hill speaking to the House Judiciary Committee about this very issue.

Clay recently got more into the discussion of Big Tech with Missouri senator Josh Hawley. On Friday, Hawley joined OutKick the Coverage to talk about his new book, The Tyranny of Big Tech, which created an opportunity for some fantastic conversation.

Our government isn't directly in control of what is being censored by Big Tech on the internet, but they've allowed it to happen. Now tech billionaires hold more power than any of the elected officials in our country, and that's a huge problem.

When Clay compared Big Tech censorship power to the Chinese government, the Missouri senator replied:

"It's incredibly frightening, and you're right, the Facebook decision this week -- or non-decision -- it's a fake cord, I call it a bogus cord," Hawley said. "Basically what they said is Facebook will do whatever they want to do, for whatever reason they want, and you should just shut up and learn to like it.

"The thing that is so frightening about that is that they can do that to anybody. I don't want any one company or any one person in America to have that kind of control over free speech. To me, this is a speech issue and it's a monopoly issue."

Hawley is right. People who aren't concerned with this level of censorship believe that it's only going to benefit them and their beliefs. They think it silences speech they don't agree with or want to hear, which they view as a good thing.

The problem is that it won't stop there. Allowing this level of power won't stop at silencing conservative views. It will eventually work its way toward other people and views, and then everything we see and hear on a large scale will be controlled.

That is a problem, and people such as Clay and Hawley understand that.

"These companies are monopolies," Hawley continued. "They've got control over speech, over our information, over journalism, over news. They shouldn't have that kind of control, and they've gotten, I would argue, with the helping hand of government.

"So my view is, we've got to break up their monopoly power. I'm a big believer in competition. The problem with these Big Tech platforms is that there's not real competition for them. So my view is, we've got to break up their monopoly power and get some new competition into the market."

That's easier said than done, but it's also something that has to happen. Things such as free speech and the free marketplace of ideas are heading in the wrong direction. The time to do something about it is now -- before it's too late.

Clay's interview with Hawley on Friday morning was fantastic. The podcast link that includes it can be found in the tweet below on OutKick the Coverage.

Follow Clint Lamb on Twitter @ClintRLamb.