During Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight on Friday, host and conservative commentator Tucker Carlson took aim at Washington, D.C. conservatives that purportedly take money from big tech companies to fight against their regulation, Breitbart reports.
Early on in the clip, Carlson highlighted that the Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity ran an ad campaign that targeted both Republicans and Democrats that were investigating alleged antitrust violations by Google and Facebook. Outside of the Koch-funded group, Carlson noted various other conservative think tanks in Washington that take money from big tech companies and often oppose current efforts to regulate such companies.
“In all, the Koch network quietly spent at least $10 million defending Silicon Valley companies that work to silence conservatives,” Carlson said.
The 50-year-old political commentator noted that Google gave money to at least 22 conservative-leaning institutions that were funded by the Koch network, including the American Enterprise Institute, the American Conservative Union, the National Review Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Mercatus Center.
Carlson took particular aim at The Heritage Foundation, which he suggested is no longer representing conservative values within the area of big tech.
“A recent paper by Heritage, entitled ‘Free Enterprise Is the Best Remedy For Online Bias Concerns,’ defends the special privileges that Congress has given to left-wing Silicon Valley monopolies. And if conservatives don’t like it, Heritage says, well they can just start their own Google!”
Per Mediaite , Heritage responded with a statement that claimed Carlson’s criticisms of the report were untrue, adding that the report was vetted and reviewed by Heritage scholars to ensure that it was accurate. The think tank concluded their statement by suggesting that the foundation values the empowerment of consumers as opposed to the government, noting that it supports free-market values as well as people that criticize government intervention.
Regardless, Carlson suggested that think tanks such as The Heritage Foundation have no qualms betraying the interests of the people they claim to represent.
“Heritage isn’t embarrassed. None of the so-called conservative nonprofits in Washington are embarrassed. They make deals with people who hate you. They secretly sell out your interests, then they beg you to tithe like it’s the medieval church.”
Part 2 of my appearance on Tucker Carlson tonight to discuss how big tech, but especially Google, is beyond criticism because it spreads the money around and buys influence. It tries to silence critics by all means, including moving to seal the court docket to head off criticism. pic.twitter.com/P7fjU4cfKH
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) April 27, 2018
As The Inquisitr previously reported, the major players in technology ?— Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple ?— are currently being targeted by regulators from the United States and the European Union. Such regulators believe that the companies may be violating antitrust laws, which has fueled calls to break them up. If Carlson is correct, then select conservative think tanks are working against these efforts.
