Ted Cruz's questions at a Senate hearing riled up libertarians

Some folks on the right — especially those who identify with libertarianism — were skeptical of Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) line of questioning during a Senate hearing on Tuesday.

The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on tech companies' use of algorithms and how they influence the public, part of a larger movement in Congress on both sides of the aisle to address rising concerns over the tech industry. Cruz grilled Google UX Director Maggie Stanphill about Project Veritas' recent investigation into whether Google is attempting to stifle conservatives.

Cruz was very concerned by the perception that Google doesn't seem to employ many Republican voters — he pointed out to Stanphill that Google employees gave Hillary Clinton a lot of money during the 2016 presidential election, while President Trump received nothing from the tech giant. Cruz kept asking Stanphill if she knew any Google senior executives who voted for Trump, to which Stanphill replied that she doesn't talk politics with her coworkers.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

But Cruz, a conservative, didn't just get flak from his opponents on the left. Libertarians were not thrilled that a Republican senator was prying into a private business the way Cruz did.

Reason writes that Cruz's questioning revealed the "self-serving, corrupt, and authoritarian nature" of his and his allies' proposals, arguing that a past version of Cruz would be quite disappointed with his current-day self. Read more at Reason.