The Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee has set a Thursday vote on whether to initiate contempt of Congress charges against Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, citing his alleged failures to fully comply with the committee’s subpoena.
Meta Inc. is the successor to Facebook, which Mr. Zuckerberg founded in 2004 as his original social media platform. Meta encompasses the original Facebook platform as well as Instagram and Threads—a new application intended to challenge Twitter.
The report contends that Mr. Jordan reached back out on May 19, almost two months after the deadline, specifying the documents still missing from the document production. What’s more, the House Judiciary Committee reported that specific Meta employees have confirmed the existence of the documents the committee has requested that Meta still has yet to turn over.
“As of July 19, 2023, the Committee has conducted transcribed interviews of nine current and former Meta employees. Several of those interviews corroborated the existence of these internal communications, as the witnesses confirmed that they communicated in writing with other Meta employees about the company’s interactions with the Executive Branch,” the House Judiciary Committee report states.
Facebook and Government Censorship
The House Judiciary Committee is seeking records of communication between Meta and federal government offices because it contends that Meta worked at the behest of government actors to suppress certain social media content.“At the government’s behest, Meta has removed specific posts and accounts, demoted certain types of content, and changed its policies in order to accommodate the government’s censorship demands,” the Judiciary Committee report states. “This has been particularly true when it comes to censorship of content related to COVID-19 and the COVID vaccines, as well as content related to elections and election integrity. Those who have questioned the safety or efficacy of lockdowns, masks, and vaccines have often found themselves suspended from the platform or had posts removed from Meta’s platforms.”
Summarizing transcribed interviews from Meta employees Brian Rice and Carrie Adams, the Judiciary Committee report states the two communicated that White House officials criticized Meta’s content moderation practices. Ms. Adams reportedly told the Judiciary Committee that White House officials “communicated that they would like to see more removal.”
“Presently available information demonstrates that the White House’s strongarming tactics succeeded,” the Judiciary Committee report continued. “For example, following the contentious meetings depicted by Rice and Adams, Facebook (a Meta subsidiary), noted in an email that in response to White House demands, the platform was censoring, removing, and reducing the virality of content discouraging vaccines even if such content did not ‘contain actionable misinformation.’”
The House report also noted the recent developments in the case of Missouri v. Biden, in which attorney generals for Missouri and Louisiana have argued that government officials had pressured private companies to censor certain speech because they knew the government could not do so.