(LibertySociety.com) – The House Judiciary Committee recently released an 800-page report that revealed the lengths the Biden administration went to coerce big tech companies to censor information not aligned with the government’s agenda.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who chairs the committee, subpoenaed the companies in question at the outset of the investigation into the matter last year. His goal was to find out how egregiously the government “coerced and colluded” with big tech “and other intermediaries to censor speech.” The report included information about how certain platforms censored pandemic-related information, even if true, to prevent the public from utilizing non-governmental resources.
The report detailed how most big tech companies changed their policies for content moderation to align with the government narrative, even down to the types of books sold on Amazon. The report revealed internal communications at Amazon and Facebook that discussed how they felt pressured by the Biden administration.
Satire was also targeted by the federal government, as they apparently felt that comedic expression would influence Americans to question the administration’s response to the pandemic. Additional internal communications at Facebook proved that the tech giant believed that the Biden administration expected the company to also remove content that did not violate its policies.
One email conversation between a Facebook executive and another employee showed that they regretted complying with censoring credible information about the virus originating in a Wuhan, China, laboratory. Other communications showed that Facebook executives were strategizing about how to deal with the administration without jeopardizing the special protections that big tech platforms receive from the federal government. In recent months, big tech companies have faced scrutiny from both sides of the aisle, albeit for different reasons. Lawmakers passed legislation to ban TikTok in the United States, which set off a likely lengthy legal battle with the company. The Supreme Court is currently weighing a censorship case against the federal government after arguments were heard before the Court back in March.
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