Senate Panel Votes to Subpoena Facebook and Twitter CEOs Over Censorship of New York Post

The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to authorize subpoenas for Facebook and Twitter CEOs, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, to compel testimony over their companies’ censorship and suppression of the notorious New York Post article about Joe Biden’s son.

Republicans are finally ratcheting up pressure on Facebook, Twitter and most other social media companies over their bias ahead of the presidential election Nov. 3.

The panel voted 12-0 to compel the testimony of Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, after Democrats on the committee had boycotted the hearing over the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

While it is not clear when the Judiciary hearing would take place, both CEOs along with Google’s Sundar Pichai, are scheduled to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee on Oct. 28. That hearing is to focus on content moderation, data privacy and media consolidation. This new hearing is in addition to that.

Thursday’s vote came about a week after Facebook and Twitter moved to restrict the spread of a controversial article in the New York Post suggesting that Hunter Biden, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s son, had organized a meeting between a Ukrainian businessman and his father, who was vice president at the time. That claim was based on emails obtained from a hard drive with no substantive links to anyone involved.

Republicans have seized on the socials’ decisions to accuse them of anti-conservative bias and attack tech’s legal liability shield. That law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, is likely to come under fire during any hearing with the Big Tech CEO’s.

Meanwhile, as Glenn Greenwald asks, we are curious “what happened to the supposed rigorous “fact-checking” process this Dem operative working for Facebook said was being applied to the NY Post emails? I’d love to see the conclusions. What did Facebook find about the authenticity of these emails? Speak up.”

Yeah, what happened to the supposed rigorous "fact-checking" process this Dem operative working for Facebook said was being applied to the NY Post emails? I'd love to see the conclusions. What did Facebook find about the authenticity of these emails? Speak up. https://t.co/uilPjgDdKv

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 21, 2020