US House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) (R) talks with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) as delegates cast their votes for Speaker of the House on the first day of the 118th Congress in the US House chamber. Capitol Building on January 03, 2023 in Washington, DC.
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House Republicans are planning to launch a new subcommittee this week that will investigate communications between Big Tech companies and the Biden administration, a source familiar with the matter confirms to CNBC.
Anticipated launch of the Federal Government’s Select Subcommittee on Armaments, As reported earlier on Monday by AxiosNewly elected Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., represents one of several nods given to the conservative faction of the GOP caucus in its long battle to win the gavel. The opinion section of The Wall Street Journal Previously reported plans for the panel.
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who supported McCarthy in his bid for the speakership, is expected to lead the new subcommittee. The panel will examine communications between tech companies and the executive branch and search for signs of pressure for conservative censorship online.
Jordan hinted In a series of letters to CEOs last month on these plans apple, Amazon, Alphabet, meta And Microsoft He sought information on “the nature and extent of your companies’ collusion with the Biden administration.” Jordan told the companies that they must preserve any existing or future records related to their requests for communications with the executive branch by “restraint, deletion, suppression, restricting or reducing the dissemination of material.”
Facebook parent Meta and Microsoft previously declined to comment on Jordan’s letters. The three other companies did not respond to previous requests for comment.
The decision to form the panel comes after the release of Twitter owner Elon Musk’s “…twitter files“- reporting from a select group of journalists allowed access to internal files after they took over the company – renewed enthusiasm about previous content moderation decisions under previous ownership of the platform.
Twitter’s decision to block a link to a New York Post article ahead of the 2020 election was among the most scrutinized of options to find “smoking gun” emails belonging to then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. was claimed. At the time, Twitter said it believed the story violated its hacked content policy. twitter later reverse The decision and its then CEO said that the actions taken by the platform “wrong“Changing our policies to prevent recurrence.”
The new subcommittee is also expected to look into other areas of potential influence and politicization in government, including the intelligence community and public health agencies.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. but in response to a political articles Last month, White House spokesman Ian Sams described negotiations to create the subcommittee. wrote on twitter“House Republicans continue to make clear they are focused on pointless political stunts on Tucker Carlson to book themselves, instead of working with @POTUS or Congressional Dems to tackle inflation & cost Americans Issues like mitigation should be addressed.
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