House GOP 'weaponization' Committee Targets Big Tech
Big Tech will soon be in the Republican House.
While House Republicans have a marginal lead over House Democrats (222-213), the GOP-led group can explore issues that have long plagued them. Chief among these is the study of how governments influence social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to deal with conservative content online.
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The first step on the party's technology agenda is the MP. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who chairs the new federal government subcommittee on militarization. The committee will have subpoena power and will focus on many of the same issues raised by the "Twitter Files" with the recent release of private correspondence that various government agencies, White House staffers and members of Congress had with microblogging sites. These conflicting reports include doubts about the COVID-19 vaccine, theories about the origin of the virus, news with potential political implications, and so on.
Advocating for an end to these social media demands by government officials, Jordan recently told the House of Representatives, "Americans are fed up."
"We just want it to stop," said Jordan, the new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, adding, "That's what this committee does." This is what we will focus on. We will."
While the subcommittee hearings and the resulting publicity may appeal to high-profile Republican voters, it remains unclear whether the proposals being considered by the government fall into First Amendment violations or are simply irrelevant.
"In order to cross the line, the state has to put so much pressure on private organizations to act in a certain way, so that the organization's decision to do so is actually the state's decision. That's a high bar. I haven't seen it passed yet." This was told to the Washington Examiner by Internet policy consultant Corbin Barthold of the impartial think tank TechFreedom in Washington, DC.
While acknowledging the difference between objectionable and illegal, Barthold continued: "This does not mean that I approve of the behavior of the federal government."
The Jordanian Subcommittee could pass legislation to prevent certain types of government attempts to influence content moderation through private social media platforms in the future.
Congress could try to regulate when government officials can "report" platform content. For example, it could make it clear that government agencies can continue to report accounts operated by foreign agents, but must stop reporting accounts that contain controversial medical claims, Barthold said. platforms."
Jordan had previously worked on legislation with a member of the House of Representatives. James Comer (R-KY), new chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and member of the House of Representatives. Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-WA), who recently became Speaker of the House. trade. The committee. The oversight committee's website explains how the third bill aims to over-regulate social media by members of President Joe Biden's administration. His proposal "will prevent Biden administration officials and federal bureaucrats from using their power or influence to encourage speech censorship or pressure social media companies to censor them."
But passing content moderation laws has been an uphill battle for Republicans. Aside from a Democratic-controlled Senate and threats of a Democratic presidential veto, the two parties fundamentally disagree about what changes they want to see in technical legislation.
Democrats are concerned about what they call "dangerous misinformation" circulating on the Internet. Republicans fear that too much conservative content will be removed from the Internet. While both sides are unhappy with the status quo, their criticisms are diametrically opposed, making a legal solution impossible. The changes to both sides mean removing or limiting the federal liability protection known as Section 230. Several bills that could do this were introduced in the last session, but none of them passed.
Republicans in the House of Representatives may not have done better on other technical issues they have shown interest in resolving. While many states are taking over the regulation of online privacy, Congress has so far been unable to pass federal privacy laws. Republicans demand that state law support the interests of business, while Democrats do not want to remove the restrictions on plaintiffs from any framework.
Similar controversy is being raised by proposals to protect children online. All but one of the antitrust bills failed in the last session. Even with the high-profile comments from Biden and former Trump administration Attorney General William Barr, the no-competition proposal does not appear to have escalated in the current session.
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Because of the underlying political controversy that delayed technology legislation on Capitol Hill, the Federal Trade Commission has aggressively asserted its right to make regulations to regulate the industry without the direction or permission of Congress. The Justice Department is reported to be launching a new antitrust case against online advertising company Google and a lawsuit against Apple.
While federal agencies may take more action against big tech in the next two years than on Capitol Hill, that hasn't stopped Jordan from trying to galvanize Democrats in the House of Representatives. He addressed the congregation by saying, “This is about the First Amendment, what do you care about. I really hope we can come to a bipartisan agreement to defend the First Amendment."
