63 Percent of Americans Want FBI ‘Censorship’ of Twitter Investigated: Poll

Law enforcement officers walk past the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington on July 21, 2022. Chung I Ho/The Epoch Times

A majority of Americans want Congress to investigate whether the FBI was involved in censoring posts on Twitter and other social media sites following new revelations from billionaire CEO Elon Musk’s release of the “Twitter Files,” a poll released on Dec. 26 found.

A total of 63 percent of likely voters think Congress should probe “whether the FBI was involved in censoring information on social media sites” and only 22 percent oppose such an investigation, the poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports found. Another 15 percent said they weren’t decided.

Rasmussen also found that 63 percent “believe it is likely that the FBI encouraged social media sites like Facebook and Twitter” to “suppress, silence, or reduce the reach of certain political speech and speakers.” About 27 percent said it isn’t likely that the FBI didn’t try to silence or suppress political speech on social media, and 11 percent said they’re not sure.

About 46 percent view the FBI unfavorably, while 50 percent view the bureau favorably, the poll showed. Some 74 percent of Democrats have a favorable opinion of the FBI, while only 34 percent of Republicans share the same perception. About 40 percent of Republicans, 28 percent of unaffiliated voters, and 10 percent of Democrats have a “very unfavorable” opinion of the law enforcement agency, it found.

The survey was released after several journalists published Twitter’s internal communications, showing that the FBI had extensive communications with Twitter’s previous management before Musk’s takeover. Starting in early December, Musk endorsed the disclosure of that information, known as the “Twitter Files.”

House Republicans have signaled they’re willing to conduct a top-to-bottom of investigation of the FBI following the recent disclosures on Twitter. House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) have floated a Church Committee-style probe, referring to the 1970s investigations led by then-Sen. Frank Church into allegations of U.S. government spying on its own citizens.

“We’ve been looking at a Church-style committee to look at this,” Jordan told Just the News last week.

McCarthy also told Fox News, “We’ve got to get to the very bottom, and I think just subpoenas are starting, but you’re almost going to have to have a Church-style investigation to reform the FBI, the more that we are learning.”

In response to the recent Twitter drops, the FBI responded by saying that “conspiracy theorists” are trying to discredit the bureau and its agents.

“The men and women of the FBI work every day to protect the American public,” the FBI said. “It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency.”