August 9, 2024
Re: “Transparency in Enforcement, Restricting, and Monitoring of Services (TERMS) Act
Dear Senator Cruz,
Independent Women’s Voice (IWV), the leading national women’s organization dedicated to advancing policies that expand people’s freedom, opportunities, and well-being, applauds your continued efforts to preserve free speech and expose how online service providers are weaponizing their terms of service to deny certain organizations access to essential technology and services.
IWV is deeply concerned about Big Tech’s repeated censorship and silencing of the voices they disagree with. For too long, Big Tech platforms have been allowed to engage in harmful bigotry without any accountability.
We know firsthand that certain Big Tech platforms believe in silencing women’s voices. In July 2023, Eventbrite deemed the Independent Women’s Network-sponsored event “Let Women Speak Austin,” which intended to enable women community members to come together in support of sex-based protections, as violating community guidelines for perpetuating “hateful, dangerous, or violent content.” The event was planned to give women the opportunity to share their opinions and lived experiences—including survivors of sexual assault concerned about being forced to undress in front of biological males—and to advocate for women’s rights and sex-based protections.
Following the cancellation of this event, our sister organizations—Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) and Independent Women’s Network (IWN)—sent a letter to Eventbrite urging them to immediately cease this viewpoint discrimination and their silencing of women. Independent Women’s Network also launched a new Action Center: Eventbrite, Stop Silencing Women.
Later that same year, Eventbrite also removed listings for events featuring IW Ambassadors Riley Gaines and Chloe Cole. Labeling events surrounding basic truth and promoting safety, privacy, and equal opportunities for women as “hateful” is not only insulting, it is blatantly sexist.
Importantly, the Transparency in Enforcement, Restricting, and Monitoring of Services (TERMS) Act would require that companies not only disclose their terms of service but also make users aware of how they violated those terms of service before taking action against them. This is an important step in ending the arbitrary, and often political, application of company policy.
Thank you, Senator Cruz, for taking this issue seriously and for pushing back against a hateful, anti-woman agenda. We are grateful for your efforts to put an end to viewpoint discrimination against women which stops us from having respectful, diverse, and thoughtful conversations on critical topics. It’s time to reject the bigotry of cancel culture.
Respectfully,
Carrie Lukas
Vice President
Independent Women’s Voice