Tech Giants Lectured,"There's Blood on Your Hands"...How About the Gun Manufacturer's or the NRA?

...selective outrage, I guess

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing yesterday to admonish tech giants about their failure (or lack of interest?) to police their platforms of material that harms children and teenagers. Some sound bites:

Miss Lindsey Graham: “There’s blood on your hands.”

Insurrectionist-enabler Josh Hawley: "“Your product is killing people.”

Cancun Ted Cruz: “Every parent in America is terrified about the garbage that is directed at our kids.”

As the New York Times reported:

In a highly charged 3.5-hour hearing, members of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee raised their voices and repeatedly castigated the five tech leaders — who run online services that are very popular with teenagers and younger children — for prioritizing profits over the well-being of youths. Some said the companies had “blood on their hands” and that users “would die waiting” for them to make changes to protect children. At one point, lawmakers compared the tech companies to cigarette makers. (Emphasis mine.)

I agree that Big Tech needs to be held to account for failing to self-regulate their platforms to fence off not just the material that harms kids, and to scrub the misinformation that leads some kook to shoot up a DC pizza parlor in which he’s been told Hillary Clinton was running a pedophile ring.

And despite their performative rage at yesterday’s hearing, Congress has failed to step in to impose a fair and common sense regulatory regime to fill that void. It can be done. The European Union has been much more proactive in this space.

But back to the (feigned?) outrage…calling out an industry for harming kids…comparing them to tobacco companies?

WHAT ABOUT THE GUN MANUFACTURERS?

WHAT ABOUT THE NRA?

WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE? WHERE’S THE ACTION?

• Columbine happened 25 years ago (15 dead)

• VA Tech happened almost 17 years ago (32 dead)

• Sandy Hook happened 11 years ago (28 dead)

• Parkland happened 5 years ago (17 dead)

• Uvalde happened less than 2 years ago (21 dead)

  

This is just a small sample of the many school shootings…if you want to consider mass shootings that did not involve kids, we have, to name just a few: a Colorado movie theatre (12 dead); a Las Vegas concert (58 dead); a Texas church (26 dead); a Buffalo supermarket (10 dead); a Pittsburg synagogue (11 dead); an El Paso Wal-Mart (23 dead) …the list goes on and on.

So, again I’d ask Graham, and Hawley, and Cruz…

WHAT ABOUT THE GUN MANUFACTURERS?

WHAT ABOUT THE NRA?

WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE?

WHERE’S THE ACTION?

Incredibly, we have THIS piece of news from Tallahassee instead:

Florida House panel OKs partial repeal of Parkland shooting-inspired gun control measure - “A Florida House committee Tuesday voted to repeal part of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, paving the way for teenagers to buy rifles like the one used to kill 17 students and teachers six years ago in Parkland, Broward County…It cleared the Criminal Justice Committee on a 11-5 party line vote, with GOP lawmakers in support.”