Iowa State Senator for District 10 Jake Chapman doesn’t feel big tech such as Amazon, Google or Apple shouldn’t have consequences for censoring speech. 

Chapman notes the ability to freely express yourself is so important that it was made into a constitutional amendment. However, when it comes to big tech companies, Chapman says lawmakers are looking to put policies in place to keep censorship from happening. 

“What we aim to do here in Iowa is if someone’s free speech, particularly political or other constitutionally protected speech, is violated they will have a mechanism whereby the courts can hear their complaint either through the AG’s (Attorney General’s) office or through their own lawsuit and that district judge will make a determination as to whether or not constitutionally protected speech was violated.”

Chapman says if there is speech violated there will be consequences for the big tech companies. He points out  things like tax breaks, for example, Apple is set to get more than $200 million in local and state tax breaks which would go away for 20 years if they were found to have violated protected speech.

“The point is Iowans will no longer pay for big tech to censor their speech. If big tech chooses to censor Iowans we won’t foot the bill for them to do so.”

Chapman notes if a big tech company were to lose those exemptions after four years of non-censorship they could ask to be reinstated in Iowa to begin receiving those benefits again.