House Republicans Latest Biden Attack: Legislation Would Ban Federal Government From Urging Tech Companies To Remove Content

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House Republicans Latest Biden Attack: Legislation Would Ban Federal Government From Urging Tech Companies To Remove Content

Top line

House Republicans plan to introduce legislation Thursday that would bar the federal government from pressuring social media companies to engage in legal speech, the Wall Street Journal reports , the latest move by the Republican-led House of Representatives to counter what Republicans say. What the party is doing is the bidding of the Biden administration. Urge tech companies to remove content highlighting Democrats.

Highlights

Representatives James Comer (Kentucky), Jim Jordan (Ohio) and Cathy McMorris Rogers (Washington), all newly appointed House key committee chairs, supported the legislation, which they said was an attempt to distance the federal government from social work. Network. To silence the Americans."

The law would mimic government interference in a speech law introduced by Comer in August, which did not make it out of committees in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.

The bill will find more support in the GOP-controlled House after the party regains control at the midterms, but has no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate.

ALSO READ:House Republicans Surrender To Big Tech

The legislation follows a series of moves this week by Republicans who have accused the Biden administration of colluding with social media companies to limit content that negatively impacts Democrats.

Key background

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives created a special subcommittee in the military of the Jordan-led federal government to investigate the Biden administration's ties to technology companies and whether they violate the international rights of Americans. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee in December, Jordan requested documents detailing the content moderation practices of several tech companies, including Apple and Meta, saying, "Evidence shows that large tech companies work closely with the federal government to silence freedom." Online speech. The White House did not immediately respond to Forbes ' request for comment on the allegations.

Tangent

Republicans say the recently released Twitter documents detailing internal debate over content moderation decisions under their former owners are further evidence that the social media company is removing legal content for political purposes. Documents released by Twitter owner Elon Musk via journalist Matt Tabby show that the company ultimately decided to remove the 2020 New York Post report about Hunter Biden due to concerns about Russian hacking. In an article published before the 2020 presidential election alleging that then-Vice President Biden had ties to Hunter Biden's business partner in Ukraine (Biden has repeatedly denied being involved in his son's business activities). Comer sought testimony from Twitter employees on Wednesday in his new role as chair of the House Oversight Committee. He also sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen requesting what he called a "suspicious activity report" detailing the business activities of the president's sons, Hunter and James Biden. Financial institutions file reports with the Ministry of Finance when they discover transactions involving illegal activity.

Oppose

White House spokesman Ian Sams said Biden's team criticized Republicans for the House's first attempt to focus on what they called "the most extreme political activities of members of its MAGA group." Meanwhile, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Wednesday , Biden called for bipartisan legislation to crack down on big tech companies. The president asked Congress to focus on steps to limit content and activities that harm children, prevent technology companies from stifling competition, and increase transparency around technology companies' data collection policies.