House Republicans are pushing for new legislation that would punish federal employees and bureaucrats who use their authority to promote censorship of speech or pressure tech companies to censor speech.
According to the proposed bill’s authors, penalties and disciplinary actions may include removal or debarment from federal employment, reduction in pay grade, or civil monetary penalties.
“From COVID-19 to Hunter Biden, Biden Administration officials are quick to label facts that don’t fit their narrative as disinformation and then pressure social media companies to suppress content on their platforms,” he continued. “This threatens Americans’ First Amendment rights.”
Other authors of the bill are House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and House Committee on Energy and Commerce ranking member Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.). The top-ranking officials shared several examples of White House officials using their position of power in what they claim censored Americans’ speech on social media platforms.
One example they shared happened in July 2021, when former White House press secretary Jen Psaki called for Facebook to “ban specific accounts from its platform” because Biden administration officials reviewed some posts on the platform and labeled them as “problematic,” alleging they “spread disinformation.”
In another example, Psaki called on other big tech companies, including Spotify, to limit social media posts that the government views as “spreading COVID-19 misinformation.”
“Reports have also uncovered concerted government efforts to pressure Twitter and Facebook to go beyond their existing community rules to caveat certain posts and suspend users viewed as spreading misinformation,” the authors wrote. “And most recently, Facebook admitted it took actions at the request of the FBI in the lead up to the 2020 Presidential election to algorithmically censor the sharing of news reports regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop leak on the social media platform.”
Rodgers said in a statement that Republicans on the committee of energy and commerce have repeatedly condemned, what they claim, is President Joe Biden pushing “to institutionalize censorship and coordinate” with major tech companies to silence Americans.
“His administration continues to pressure private companies to censor and manipulate the truth online,” she said. “Big Tech platforms have become the modern town square, and any effort to erase people from these digital spaces simply for not adhering to the woke liberal agenda is unconstitutional.”
