House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) sent a letter On Thursday, his committee chairman, Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), asked him to investigate inaccurate information about the presidential election on x (twitter). Jordan, a self-proclaimed defender of free speech, has technology/gop-disinformation-researchers-2024-election.html” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:relentlessly pursued;elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:2;pos:1;itc:0;sec:content-canvas”>relentlessly pursued Jordan says social platforms have censored conservative voices. To give a small taste of what Jordan considers censorship, he protested when platforms removed false conspiracy theories about COVID during the height of the pandemic and banned Donald Trump for inciting a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Nadler cited reports that Grok, x’s artificial intelligence chatbot, falsely claimed that Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris missed deadlines in nine states, making her ineligible to appear on ballots. Harris did not miss any deadlines and will appear on ballots in all 50 states.
Additionally, Nadler pointed to reports that Musk’s social media platform suspended the group White Dudes for Harris (@dudes4harris) after it hosted an event that raised over $4 million from over 200,000 people for the vice president’s campaign. The account was locked due to a “user report” accusing it of “violating rules against suspension evasion,” which was never explained in further detail. After x reinstated the White Dudes account the next day, the same profile was labeled as spam after being falsely accused of “platform manipulation,” limiting its reach.
Nadler also mentioned that “prominent journalists with left-leaning accounts” had their x-profiles “accidentally” suspended.
“Given Chairman Jordan’s extensive focus on allegations of social media censorship this Congress, Ranking Member Nadler urged Chairman Jordan to continue to fight political discrimination on platforms by investigating this matter,” Nadler’s office wrote in the letter. “Chairman Jordan’s silence on this matter follows actions by x to stop disinformation against Republican officials on its platform that have not been similarly applied to Democratic officials.”
“In short, I don’t trust Mr. Musk (with his self-proclaimed expansive view of free speech) to be as quick to act against election misinformation about liberals as he is to act against conservatives.”
Musk has apparently had no trouble handling accusations of censorship of right-wing figures. Nadler’s letter cites the platform’s swift response to false posts that allegedly stemmed from internal x software and claimed that Musk, Trump and other far-right figures were exempt from policies banning racial slurs. The account that posted the fake images was suspended within hours and soon slapped with warning labels about manipulated media. x confirmed that multiple accounts were suspended for sharing the fake images.
Where is the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in this fight? Probably by staying on the sidelines. “The FEC has consistently dismissed complaints against social media sites where it could show they were simply enforcing their own moderation rules,” said campaign finance lawyer Brett Kappel. said The Washington Post“This is likely to remain the case with x, even though the company has seriously weakened its own rules.”
“While we may have significant disagreement about the degree and extent of content moderation, I hope we can at least agree that enforcement of the rules on a major platform like x should be fair to both parties,” Nadler said. “At a basic level, a platform’s policies should be enforced impartially and without political bias.”
