House Republicans have subpoenaed Google parent Alphabet for records related to alleged censorship of YouTube content by the Biden administration.
The House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, “continues to investigate how and to what extent the Biden-Harris Administration coerced or colluded with companies and other intermediaries, including Alphabet, to censor lawful speech.”
In his letter to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Jordan alleges that the federal government pressured YouTube to censor certain lawful content, including material “that did not violate YouTube’s content moderation policies.”
At issue are Biden administration efforts to alert social media services about misinformation on their platforms, particularly as it pertained to the COVID-19 pandemic and the vaccine. Republicans argue this amounts to censorship, and shortly after his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order aimed at “restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship,” arguing that the Biden administration used the pretense of “misinformation” and “disinformation” to infringe on free speech rights.
However, last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the White House is allowed to contact social media companies about content they believe could be harmful, as long as they don’t force companies to remove it.
In August, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the House Judiciary Committee that he thought “pressure [from the Biden administration] was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it.” However, he acknowledged that “ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to take content down, and we own our decisions.”
Jordan points to Zuckerberg’s statement in his letter to Pichai. “Alphabet, to our knowledge, has not similarly disavowed the Biden-Harris Administration’s attempts to censor speech,” he says. “To inform legislative reforms to protect Americans’ civil liberties, the Committee must fully understand the extent and nature of the Biden-Harris Administration’s censorship efforts.”
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In a statement to Reuters, Google says it will “continue to show the committee how we enforce our policies independently, rooted in our commitment to free expression.”
Meta, meanwhile, has cozied up to Trump since November, getting rid of formal fact checkers in favor of the Community Notes model used on X. The company donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund and Zuckerberg attended the inauguration. (Google and Pichai did the same.)
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About Will McCurdy
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