During recent proceedings of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who’s the top Democrat there, sharply criticized a GOP proposal in the House that responds to longstanding conservative outrage about the (very) temporary limits imposed by social media sites on spreading a certain article about a laptop of files ostensibly tied to Hunter Biden.
This information was still widely available elsewhere, including in some forms on the sites themselves! Banning users from, in general, posting a particular link isn’t going to stop every mode of distributing what was accessible at that link, and that doesn’t even cover the quickly extensive interest in Hunter Biden, who is a son of the current president, at conservative outlets like Fox. It also simply defies logic to suggest that the coverage, if more widely distributed (beyond what in reality was its already extensive distribution!), could’ve decided the 2020 election. Hunter wasn’t running for office.
“The original flaw of this legislation is that it’s based on the entirely false premise that government officials pressured or coerced Twitter to suppress the New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop for all of 24 hours,” Raskin said. “At our last hearing, none of the three witnesses called by the GOP majority supported that theory in any way. In fact, the hearing ended with the conclusion on February 8 that there was no governmental pressure or coercion involved in the private company’s fleeting, independent decision to moderate access to the Hunter Biden laptop story for a day or two.”
A press release from Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) previously described the GOP proposal that Raskin was discussing as restricting even government communication with a third party about disputed speech, like the Post’s controversial article — something beyond the government taking direct action to suppress it, which is what lawmakers obviously long ago covered with the First Amendment.
“The receipt or collection of information from the government does not transform a private entity’s editorial decisions into state action from the standpoint of the First Amendment,” Raskin later continued, addressing claimed concerns that some may try to foster over any federal authority getting in touch with a private entity like Twitter about particular communications at all. Raskin also referenced the kinds of potential problems created by the proposal of limiting even communications from the government to somebody like Twitter about real-world threats, like false claims being spread online by foreign interests.
Raskin also noted how the bill, if enacted, would limit the ability of a private company like Twitter to gather information about potentially domestic threats of violence being fostered through communications on their sites. “Mr. Chairman, most people will recognize as absurd all the whining by election deniers, COVID deniers, white supremacists, and neo-Nazis that they somehow have a God-given right to spout off on other people’s private internet platforms,” Raskin observed. Predictably, the Republicans with their names attached to the proposal include oversight panel chair Rep. James Comer (Ky.) and other Republicans on the panel, like Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio). Outside of Congress, Trump himself has also participated in the performative outrage about supposed suppression of the story about Hunter Biden.
📢 Ranking Member @RepRaskin is right: H.R. 140 is NOT about protecting Americans’ free speech; it’s a Putin Protection Act and a Chinese Propaganda Protection Act that would hinder our ability to protect our democracy against foreign influences. pic.twitter.com/lLGhYmcxLJ
— Oversight Committee Democrats (@OversightDems) February 28, 2023
