The United States House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Republican Jim Jordan, today sent subpoenas to the CEOs of major tech companies ordering them to share information on their content moderation policies, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Subpoenas for documents and communications were sent to Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. Curiously, the panel left out Twitter CEO Elon Musk despite the fact that Twitter is one of the most popular social networks.
U.S. House Judiciary Committee Republicans plan to investigate whether the federal government "colluded" with tech companies to "suppress free speech" on issues like COVID-19. Republican lawmakers have long suggested that social networks and tech companies engage in anti-conservative bias by suppressing conservative voices.
In an announcement of the subpoenas, Jordan said that the House Judiciary Committee has "attempted to engage" with Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Alphabet since last year, but has been unsuccessful.
🚨HUGE BREAKING NEWS: @Jim_Jordan subpoenas Big Tech CEOs. pic.twitter.com/WuOWccu2ZC — House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) February 15, 2023
Apple and the other companies will need to provide documents and communications with the U.S. government on topics that include moderation, deletion, and reduced circulation of content by March 23.
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