Social media dominance needs to be monitored 'carefully' at federal level: ex-US AG

There are growing concerns about how powerful social media platforms have become in wake of the chaotic protests on Capitol Hill.

Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo on “Mornings with Maria” Monday that social media dominance needs to be monitored “carefully at the federal level.”

His comments come on the heels of Parler, an app popular with conservatives and President Trump supporters, officially going offline after Amazon, Apple, and Google pulled their support for it. Twitter on Friday also permanently banned the president from its platform.

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ALBERTO GONZALES: “I worry about the dominance, quite frankly. I think that needs to be monitored carefully at the federal level. The fact that there was this kind of reaction so quickly is not surprising. Obviously, a great deal of pressure, embarrassment, quite frankly, to the extent that these companies are concerned that their… platforms are being used and could be characterized by American citizens as being somehow complicit, that this should have been anticipated, that these are supposed to be monitored and therefore … why perhaps these platforms, these companies, could have done something more to alert law enforcement.

…

The reaction, it's not surprising whatsoever and we'll see where this ends up and I don't know whether or not this is going to result in Congress passing some kind of legislation. I know that the companies are always concerned about that. And so they want to... appear to Congress as if there they are, in fact, policing themselves.

…

This is about in one part doing the right thing, but also this kind of the use of their platforms is not good for business, quite frankly. And I think that they're concerned about that.”

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Watch the full interview above.