The Scoop
The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday subpoenaed Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube, according to documents viewed by Semafor — the latest escalation of Republican attempts to investigate alleged bias in the tech industry.
The subpoena sent by Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, seeks communications from or regarding the executive branch and stems from conservatives’ long-running concerns that the Biden administration “coerced or colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor lawful speech.”
“To develop effective legislation, such as the possible enactment of new statutory limits on the executive branch’s ability to work with Big Tech to restrict the circulation of content and deplatform users, the Committee must first understand” the scope of the Biden administration’s contacts with tech companies on the issue, Jordan wrote to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai on Thursday.
Alphabet has a March 28th to respond to the subpoena. “We’ll continue to show the committee how we enforce our policies independently, rooted in our commitment to free expression.” José Castañeda, a Google spokesperson, said in a statement to Semafor.
The latest Jordan subpoena comes a week after the Judiciary panel subpoenaed eight major tech companies for details of their communications with foreign companies.
It also follows the recent launch of a public inquiry by the Federal Trade Commission into complaints from users who felt tech platforms had censored them, or whose access may have been restricted for partisan reasons.
Know More
At the heart of the Judiciary inquiry is a broader allegation by conservatives that major tech companies throttle online access to voices that lean politically right. The Supreme Court ruled against a group of GOP-led states last year in a court challenge to the Biden administration’s handling of social media posts that touched on Covid vaccines and other polarizing topics.
Charges of social media censorship from leading conservatives, however, aren’t always restricted to claims of liberal bias by tech CEOs. Several X users on the right alleged last year that owner Elon Musk had scaled back their access to the platform amid disagreements within the GOP about immigration policy.
In his letter to Pichai, Jordan singled out Meta as a company that has complied with the panel’s requests. Meta ended fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram earlier this year.
Notable
- Jordan’s relationship with Elon Musk is close enough to be seen as a “mind meld,” as Politico reported.
- Jordan was undaunted in his pushback against alleged censorship after the high court ruling last year, per Cleveland.com.