The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed the CEOs of leading tech companies in order to obtain documents and communications relating to free-speech issues and their content moderation methods on their platforms.
The subpoenas have been issued to the CEO"s of Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon, with Twitter notably absent from the list. This is all part of the White House"s plans to focus on limiting the power and reach of big tech firms, which the Biden administration announced back in September.
The documents and communications, under the requirements of the subpoena, have to be provided to the panel by the 23rd March, and they need to be related to moderation, deletion, suppression or reduced circulation of content. This has always been a point of contention between the two sides with Republican politicians arguing that the platforms have limited the reach of conservative voices.
The leader of the Judiciary Committee, Chairman Jim Jordan, said that the committee itself is looking to understand "how and to what extent the Executive Branch coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech." Stating that Twitter is taking the correct direction under its new leadership.
Source: The Wall Street Journal