JD Vance wants to let social media users sue tech companies if they get fired for abhorrent posts

"Hillbilly Elegy" author J.D. Vance says that Ohio voters are worried that "cancel culture" will come for them.

The author, venture capitalist and U.S. Senate candidate told Axios the issue, which is a staple of Fox News programming, deeply concerns the Republican voters he met at parades and other events over the Fourth of July weekend, and he vowed to take legislative action if he emerges from the GOP primary and win the seat held by retiring Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH).

"People are terrified that if they speak their minds about what's going on in the country, they're going to lose their job," Vance said. "'If I say that I voted for Trump on Facebook, somebody's going to try to get me fired."

Vance called for laws protecting social media users from banishment for what he describes as "their political viewpoint," and allow them to sue if their online activity leads to real-life consequences.

"You can basically give people the right to sue companies that they're fired for their political views," he said. "I think that would benefit a lot of Republican voters in Ohio quite a bit."

Vance is open to antitrust remedies, saying that breaking up big technology companies would give the government more control over them.

"So long as these companies are too powerful, there's no real way to control them," he said. "You break them up, and you make them less powerful actors."

The GOP candidate would also consider taking a "strike at the heart of the entire digital technology business model" by banning companies from collecting certain data or even prohibiting them from selling targeted advertising.