Republican strategist Cabot Phillips on Friday warned conservatives against government intervention in tech companies after claims of bias were fueled this week by a leaked video that showed Google employees lamenting President Trump’s 2016 election victory.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily a big surprise,” Phillips told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton on “Rising,” referring to the leaked footage.
“My concern does come on what the answer is. You have Google considering themselves and Twitter propping themselves up as free speech bastions, but you do start to be concerned about the way that the algorithms are going to affect,” he continued.
The video, obtained by Breitbart News, shows Google executives including co-founder Sergey Brin comparing Trump voters to “extremists” and authoritarian movements.
“I don’t know if government intervention is the answer. I always get weary of the government swooping in to save the day,” he continued.
“It’s interesting now to see conservatives, who oftentimes want government out of business to now say, ‘wait a second, it’s impacting us, so maybe the government should get involved.’ I would caution my fellow conservatives against doing that because whoever’s in power next will have that same power if you grant it to them, and it may not be something you want,” he said.
Google denied in a statement to Breitbart that the footage displays any instances of bias being written into Google’s platform.
“At a regularly scheduled all hands meeting, some Google employees and executives expressed their own personal views in the aftermath of a long and divisive election season,” the statement to Breitbart reads.
“Nothing was said at that meeting, or any other meeting, to suggest that any political bias ever influences the way we build or operate our products,” a spokesperson added.
— Julia Manchester
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