Sen Josh Hawley (R-MO) Is Making the Conservative Case Against Facebook

A Q&A with Sen Josh Hawley (R-MO). 

When asked, "Do you think [it's a good idea to force Facebook to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp]? Or have they done a good enough job integrating the services?" Sen Hawley said, "I think Facebook is an extremely creepy company. I don’t know if they’ve done a good job with anything. I’m not a very big fan. We need to have a discussion, though, about what antitrust looks like when applied to the tech world. Our antitrust laws and our antitrust doctrine in the courts are not really developed to talk about this. So we’ll have that discussion in the courts. It should probably also happen here [in Congress]. You have to think about privacy. You have to think about competition. You have to think about speech bias. I mean, these companies are so huge and their influence is so massive that any action impacts huge parts of society and law." When asked, "Some conservatives see it as government overreach, using regulatory agencies to interfere with private business. Why don’t you see it that way?" Sen Hawley said, "I dispute that it hasn’t been a part of conservative values. If you believe in the free market then you’re not a monopoly. You have to be for free, open, fair competition and that’s what we’re talking about here. Monopoly control of markets that is anti-competitive, that keeps new competition out, that is not pro-free market. That is not something as a part of conservatism that I’ve recognized."