Media top headlines July 12
The New York Times getting ripped for equating 'freedom' to an 'anti-government slogan,' Gov. Kristi Noem saying it was 'tough' being attacked by conservative media over trans-athlete bill, and MSNBC giving Michael Avenatti's prison sentence less than 2 minutes of coverage round out today's top media headlines
DALLAS–Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., renewed her criticism of the liberal media and Big Tech Saturday as she slammed the two over their involvement in suppression of the lab-leak theory concerning the origin of the coronavirus.
Speaking with Fox News during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Blackburn ripped the media for downplaying the lab-leak theory when it was suggested by former President Donald Trump, expressed concern over Dr. Anthony Fauci's "coziness" with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg amid revelations from his published emails, and called for "one set of rules" in regulating the online ecosystem of Big Tech.
"It's so interesting because I've worked on the issue of online privacy, data security, censorship, all these issues since 2012 when I started pushing consumer privacy and reshaping the business model for Big Tech companies," Blackburn said when asked about the involvement of the media and Big Tech in attempting to squash the lab-leak theory prior to the release of Fauci's emails. "But what happened with the Fauci emails, and that coziness that he had with Mark Zuckerburg is people said, ‘Hey, wait a minute!’"
BLACKBURN, RUBIO, COTTON DEMAND FAUCI RESIGN OR BE FIRED BY BIDEN
"So President Trump – you all ballyhooed him and the liberal press said, ‘This is ridiculous!’ Big Tech said, ‘Conspiracy theory!’ Leftists said, ‘Conspiracy theory!’ And all the time Dr. Fauci could have said, 'Hey this might have been a leak from a lab, might have been unintentional, we need to figure this out, I'm concerned about gain of function research,'" she said. "But then he was saying something different to the American people."
Blackburn said Fauci wasn't upfront with Congress during his various testimonies on the Hill, even when members had called on officials to look into the Wuhan Institute of Virology and U.S. involvement in coronavirus research there.
After referencing accusations there might have been a PR strategy between Facebook and Fauci to build a narrative about the origins of the virus, Blackburn called for more online privacy rules that she said would stop Big Tech companies from preventing "new influence" from taking life in the online world.
"We have needed to put one set of rules for the entire online ecosystem in place for years when it comes to privacy, and the [Federal Trade Commission] should be the regulator for that. They are the online regulator," she said. "But Big Tech has fought and pushed back on that now. They're saying, ‘Oh we need online privacy rules,’ because they want to make it so expensive that you will never have new influence in the marketplace and they can cement their position as the online leader."
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Earlier in June, Blackburn told "Fox Business Tonight" that Zuckerberg should be called to testify before Congress over the alleged censorship by Facebook over the origin of the coronavirus.
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