WASHINGTON – The House Oversight and Accountability Committee will vote Tuesday two bills aiming to curb government influence on social media posts on Twitter and Facebook.
One bill from the chairman, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., seeks to prohibit federal employees from using their authority to influence social media companies to suppress or restrict or add disclaimers to lawful commentary.
The other bill, from Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., would require a government-wide report of all the times in the last five years a federal agency urged a social media company to remove or suppress or add disclaimers to lawful speech.
Here’s what we know about the legislation:
Both pieces of legislation come after a hearing earlier this month detailed how Twitter temporarily blocked links to news stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Republicans argued social media platforms also suppressed allegations of 2020 election fraud and COVID-19 origins and treatments. Twitter and Facebook each banned former President Donald Trump after the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, but his access has been restored.
Former Twitter executives testified they met routinely during the 2020 presidential campaign with FBI officials who would raise concerns about posts, which the company would decide whether to act on. The executives regretted blocking links to a New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop weeks before the 2020 election, but said they had been warned about possible Russian hacking and disinformation.
“Biden Administration officials are quick to label inconvenient facts as disinformation and then pressure social media companies to suppress content on their platforms,” Comer said. “The Biden Administration has eroded Americans’ First Amendment rights by bullying social media companies to censor certain views and news on their platforms.”
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The top Democrat on the panel, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, said none of the witnesses said the FBI ordered Twitter to limit distribution of the story. But former President Donald Trump’s White House contacted the platform urging the removal of a 2019 tweet by celebrity Chrissy Teigen, witnesses said.
The prospects for both Oversight bills are uncertain because of conflicting policy goals between the Republican House and the Democratic Senate. In broad terms, Republicans contend too much free speech is restricted, while Democrats have argued the platforms should do more to combat misinformation.
The legislation is part of House Republican oversight of the Biden administration that lawmakers said was neglected while Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress. Republicans have focused on social media companies in their initial inquiries.
Besides the legislation in Oversight and Foreign Affairs, the head of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, subpoenaed top executives from five companies – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Meta – to ask about the alleged suppression of conservatives.
Jordan seeks information about whether the FBI or other agencies urged private companies such as Twitter, Facebook and Google’s YouTube to steer users away from conservative content or drop conservative users.
The subpoenas went to:
Timothy Cook, CEO of Apple
Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, the parent company of Google
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms, the parent of Facebook.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: House committee to vote on restricting influence on Twitter, Facebook