Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Wednesday evening unveiled what has been dubbed the “Digital Bill of Rights,” which the governor said aims to protect the privacy of Floridians in the digital realm by, in part, requiring more transparency.
“So what is the Digital Bill of Rights?” the governor asked.
“Well, we want to protect your right as a Floridian to have private in-person conversations without Big Tech surveilling you. If you want to consent to let them have this information so they can fashion advertising based off of it, it’s your right to consent to do so,” he said, emphasizing that Big Tech does not have a fundamental right to “have that information.”
“We also are going to protect the right to participate in online platforms without unfair censorship. We want free speech, we want more speech, not less speech,” he said, adding that they also want to protect the “right to know how these internet search engines are manipulating search results,” calling for more transparency.
“We want to protect your right to control all your personal data on the largest and most common platforms. They take that personal data and they make a fortune off your personal data,” he continued, naming Google and Facebook as examples.
“Finally, the Digital bill of Rights aims to protect children from various online harms,” DeSantis added.
WATCH:
DeSantis posted a recap of what the “Digital Bill of Rights” will supposedly do, including banning the use of TikTok and other social media outlets linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on all government devices. Further, these CCP-tied platforms would also be banned “through internet services provided by any university, public school or other government office.”
Per the governor’s office:
Governor DeSantis has also directed the Department of Management Services (DMS) to issue a formal recommendation to state agencies to implement all necessary safeguards to block access to applications and software tied to China, including TikTok, WeChat, and QQ, from all state devices. DMS will also prevent network connections to servers associated with foreign countries of concern.
WATCH the full press conference below: