Ted Cruz Echoes Elizabeth Warren’s Criticism of Facebook’s Power

(Bloomberg) -- Two of Washington’s most vocal partisan rivals found one thing they’re aligned on: anger at Facebook Inc.

Senator Ted Cruz, a conservative Texas Republican, said Tuesday that Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was right to criticize the world’s largest social media company for having too much power over free speech.

Facebook had removed ads placed by Warren’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination that called for the company to be broken up, claiming the spots violated "policies against use of our corporate logo." The site restored the ads after Politico reported on their removal, "in the interest of allowing robust debate." As a private company Facebook doesn’t have a legal requirement to protect free speech the way the government does.

After Warren tweeted that the platform’s actions demonstrated her point that "FB has too much power" and that it was acting as an unopposed "censor," Cruz retweeted her, saying it was the first time he’d ever retweeted his liberal colleague. He has criticized Facebook in the past over claims it censors conservative voices.

"She’s right—Big Tech has way too much power to silence Free Speech," Cruz tweeted. "They shouldn’t be censoring Warren, or anybody else. A serious threat to our democracy," Cruz said in the tweet.

Bipartisan anger at tech giants that were once the darlings of Washington is increasing after years of data lapses, allegations that they abuse their dominance and concerns about their effect on the political process. Republicans and Democrats may disagree on how best to rein in the companies, including on whether breaking them up is a viable solution, but they are collaborating on some matters such as privacy legislation.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Brody in Washington at btenerellabr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, Jillian Ward

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