Texas GOP state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, who has spoken out against two of Texas’ biggest cable operators for censoring Newsmax TV, says the leftist-elitist, leftist-progressive companies need to “get over it” and adopt a fair and balanced programming card for “everyone to have.”
“It’s just sad I’m having to comment on what’s fundamental free speech in America. They should know better, and they should be letting Newsmax onto their cable systems right now,” Bettencourt told Newsmax TV’s “Chris Salcedo Show.”
Grande and enTouch don’t carry Newsmax TV but carry CNN and MSNBC. Bettencourt on Tuesday brought some attention to the issue, tweeting: “@grandecom & @enTouchHouston continue to block their customers from viewing @newsmax by censoring content and limiting your customer choice.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, backed Bettencourt’s efforts.
“Carriers should not be censoring Newsmax. Let the viewers decide!” he wrote on Twitter.
“There’s no basis for it,” Bettencourt told Salcedo.
“If you’re going to have 11 other news channels on, why not have the No. 4 news channel, which is Newsmax? This is an example of what happens when the conservative companies’ voices being silenced by liberal elites and these media organizations and quite frankly, they need to change their mind and they need to change their mind now.”
Republican lawmakers say conservative voices are being silenced on social media. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in early March announced he was joining Sen. Bryan Hughes’ Senate Bill 12, which they say will prohibit platforms from censoring conservative and free speech.
“Conservative speech will not be canceled in the state of Texas,” Abbott said. “[This bill] would allow any Texan who has been canceled, censored or de-platformed to file a lawsuit against Twitter, Facebook or any of these other companies.”
In February, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis backed legislation to “check growing power and influence of big tech” and give consumers “more control of their data.”
“They have all the power. They dictate all the rules,” DeSantis said. “We can’t let it go on any longer.”
As part of the bill, the state could sue companies if it believed that was “in the public interest.”
“A business that collects personal information shall, at or before the point of collection, inform consumers of the categories of personal information to be collected and the purposes for which the categories of personal information will be used,” the bill says.
Note: See Newsmax TV now carried in more than 100 million U.S. homes, on DirecTV Ch. 349, Dish Network Ch. 216, Xfinity Ch. 1115, Spectrum, U-verse Ch. 1220, FiOS Ch. 615, Frontier Ch. 115, Optimum Ch. 102, Cox cable, Suddenlink Ch. 102, Mediacom Ch. 277, AT&T TV Ch 349, and major OTT platforms like Roku, Youtube, Xumo, Pluto and most smart TV’s including Samsung+, Sony, LG, Vizion and more – Find All Systems that Carry Newsmax – Click Here
Source: Newmax
