House Judiciary subpoenas Tim Cook & rest of big tech about alleged collusion:
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has subpoenaed Big Tech executives to try to discover if they colluded to suppress free speech.
The Committee is seeking documents and commucations from the CEOs of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft to see if the companies worked with the federal government to censor content on their platforms. The Committee says it has repeatedly attempted to work with the companies since December, but they did not "adequately comply" with the requests.
The subpoenas require Sundar Pichai, Andy Jassy, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckberg, and Satya Nadella to turn over all requested documents and communications by March 23, 2023. According toThe Wall Street Journal, it's a probe to determine if the companies censored viewpoints on issues such as COVID-19 policy that disagreed with White House policy.
However, in November, Apple CEO met with GOP lawmakers that included Ohio's Jim Jordan, California's Darrel Issa, and Washington's Cathy McMorris Rogers. At the time, it wasn't clear what was on the agenda.
Notably, the Committee didn't request information from Twitter CEO Elon Musk, even though it's a popular social network. However, Jordan has publicly voiced his support for Musk in the past.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 20, @05:36AM (8 children)
All of them censored anything, and everything, that Fauci and company asked them to censor. Ditto with anything the DNC didn't want exposed, like Hunter Biden's laptop. They quote criminals, so they can argue from authority for censorship.
It's not so much a question of "Did they?", but, more a question of "What are we going to do about it?"
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Thexalon on Monday February 20, @01:35PM (3 children)
So it's funny, but when they called a bunch of Twitter people to testify within the last couple of weeks, what the Twitter people's testimony amounted to was:
1. The main thing that Twitter censored at the behest of the Biden campaign were nude photos of Hunter. Which they would indeed censor, because they were nude photos, not because they had any specific love for the Biden campaign.
2. They censored a lot more stuff at the behest of the Trump administration than the Biden campaign.
3. As far as the testimony seemed to indicate, they tried their best to be fair. They might have failed at that, but it's also that the Republican definition of "fair" seems to be more Fox News' definition of "fair" than many other people's definition.
But also: As the law stands right now, they're allowed to censor whoever they want for whatever reason they want. Just like any other privately owned website, media outlet, publisher, or event. They committed no crime or tort by doing so. And to the best of my knowledge, there's no bill pending that would change that, because among other things it's more than a bit awkward from a First Amendment angle to require a private business or person to repeat any particular political message. So I'm a bit unclear about the legislative purpose of these hearings.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by stormreaver on Monday February 20, @07:33PM
The purpose is the same as it's always been in these circumstances: political theater.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 21, @06:14AM
While that's an interesting narrative, we have other evidence [theguardian.com] that indicates that Twitter censors on other claimed characteristics:
New York Post was blocked from tweeting for two weeks of three before the 2020 elections (the ban was raised on October 31), and it wasn't because of nude pics.
Let's just say that from my long experience reading about such congressional testimony - and the lack of legal repercussions even for ridiculous lying, that I don't treat it as unadorned truth.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday February 21, @03:41PM
Yup. The right are unable to distinguish "censoring free speech" from "refusing to propagate every batshit crazy conspiracy theory we dream up". All that various sites are doing is trying to enforce some minimal level of accuracy and truthfulness, which tends to hit you if you're making up and circulating random conspiracy theories with no basis in fact. There's a great quote from someone who researched and wrote about this happening on Facebook when the Macedonian trolls from Veles posted inflammatory (but made-up) stories targeting Democrats they pretty much ignored it because they recognised they were being fed BS, when they targeted Republicans they lapped it up. So the troll farmers recognised that there was good money to be made in stirring up the US right with imaginary stories, and they made a mint from it.
I'm no fan of Fecebook and Twatter, but this hearing will go nowhere if the only argument they got is that they downrated made-up conspiracy theory posts because they were inaccurate. It's pure political posturing, it'll look great on Fox news, selectively edited to show all the whining and moaning but nothing substantial from the responses, but that's all it is.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Monday February 20, @03:51PM (1 child)
I think we should get things in order. The first, and arguably much more important issue of major national importance is: Hillary's Emails!
But, before that, we should be investigating the Clintons for Whitewater!
After all that, then the Republicans can get their way to make sure everyone gets a good look at Hunter Biden's genitals which was withheld from public view by the evil sensors.
Hunter is a private citizen who has never held any public office.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Monday February 20, @09:14PM
I'd note that since I don't use Twitter (like most Americans) or read the NY Post (again, like most Americans) I never would have heard about the NY Post article at all if Twitter hadn't taken the actions they did.
And since the story itself remained (and likely still exists there, not going to check) on the NY Post website without any restriction, the "Hunter Biden Laptop Story" wasn't censored at all.
Rather, links to the story (which, I'll say again, was never removed from the NY Post website, where you can read it today -- right now -- as often as you like) were limited on Twitter.
Which is a great reason not to use Twitter. I certainly don't.
I'd posit that millions more Americans were exposed to that story by all the stories around Twitter's limiting on their platform than would have been if Twitter hadn't taken the actions they did.
As I said, I most likely never have heard about it at all had Twitter not taken the actions they did. As such, especially since the story was and is still available to anyone who wants to see it, this whole thing is just political theater, and not even good theater.
Twitter acted within the law and within their First Amendment rights. Don't like the law or the First Amendment? There are processes for making change.
The whole "I'm being censored!" bullshit is just that. The NY Post published the story and no one censored the story. Full stop.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Monday February 20, @06:22PM
And Biden did this all while Trump was still President. Boy, that guy's abilities get more impressive by the day!
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday February 20, @06:22PM
In the mean time if you were to talk to your allies about things like not being violent/infecty/inssurecty you could have a lot fewer events to mis-characterize as CeNsOrSHiP.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday February 20, @03:54PM (1 child)
They should all stand up, hold up their right hand and say:
I do not believe that cigarette smoking causes cancerEr, uh . . . I mean . . .
I do not believe that having, publishing, and enforcing a TOS causes cancer.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21, @12:21AM
I'd love if they declared they were sovereign citizens and therefore not subject to US laws.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Monday February 20, @07:09PM
The "Crap infotainment that might get people hurt or killed party" is upset that they got 'censored' more often than the "more or less decent advice that might help you party". Gee, I wonder why.