‘I’ve Changed My Mind’ — Rand Paul Does Major About Face On Big Tech

Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul pivoted his stance on Google and YouTube on Monday, writing “YouTube and its parent company Google deserves to be sued,” in an opinion piece for the New York Post (NY Post).

Paul, who has a history of backing the private-property rights of internet companies, changed his stance due to a video YouTube refused to take down that accused Paul of taking money from captured, deposed and indicted Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro. Paul called the video an “untruth” that is “essentially an accusation of treason,” which has spurred death threats against him, leading him to now pursue legislation to hold platforms liable for upholding defamatory content.

“The arrogance of Google to continue hosting this defamatory video and the resultant threats on my life have caused me to rethink Congress’ blind allegiance to liability shields,” Paul wrote for the NY Post in the piece titled, “I’ve changed my mind — Google and YouTube can’t be trusted to do the right thing and must be reined in.”

“Liability protection now encourages bad actors, many of whom are actually paid for their bad actions,” the senator added.

Paul, a staunch libertarian-conservative, wrote in his op-ed that while he had previously defended liability protection for social media sites under the right to free speech, he had never adequately considered how internet providers could host content accusing people of committing crimes. Paul asked a Google executive whether it would be acceptable to post defamatory comments calling a small town mayor a “pedophile,” to which the executive said YouTube does not monitor their content for truth and factual evidence.