House Passes Bill to Prohibit Collusion Between Federal Government, Big Tech to Censor Lawful Speech

On March 9, the House passed a bill prohibiting the federal government and Big Tech from conspiring to censor lawful speech.

The Bill passed 219–206.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who is the chairman of House Oversight Committee, introduced the bill. It is expected that the bill will die upon arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Before the vote, Rep. Greg Landsman (D.Ohio), accused the bill’s proponents of “promoting” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “will” Propaganda. The bill was called by Dan Goldman, a Democratic Representative from New York. “a complete waste of time and completely unnecessary.” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.The House Oversight Committee’s ranking member, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D.Md.), called for the bill. “the Putin protection act.”

But, the bill’s supporters also condemned free speech being attacked by Big Tech and federal government. This includes silence of conservative voices. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R. Wis.) mentioned Twitter’s censorship. Hunter Biden laptop story Just weeks before the 2020 elections.

“It is the policy of the Congress that employees acting in their official capacity should neither take action within their authority or influence to promote the censorship of any lawful speech, nor advocate that a third party, including a private entity, censor such speech,” The bill states.

The bill would be an extension to The Hatch Act. This law prohibits civil federal employees (except for the president) from engaging in certain acts of politics, including campaigning.

This measure does not prohibit the federal government to work with Big Tech in order to combat illicit content.

The bill was prompted by the Twitter Files, which were released by prominent journalists such as Matt Taibbi under the direction of Elon Musk. Some of the files reveal collusion between Washington DC and Big Tech.

Taibbi (Dec. 16, 2012) described one example of collusion between Twitter, the FBI, and Twitter. “constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary.”

Taibbi said that “between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth.” Some emails were related to election disinformation. Twitter accounts that might have violated Twitter’s Terms of Service were provided by the FBI.

The FBI They dismissed the allegationsIt is called the work of “conspiracy theorists.”

“The correspondence between the FBI and Twitter show nothing more than examples of our traditional, longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements, which involve numerous companies over multiple sectors and industries,” The bureau sent a statement to multiple outlets. “As evidenced in the correspondence, the FBI provides critical information to the private sector in an effort to allow them to protect themselves and their customers.”

“The men and women of the FBI work every day to protect the American public,” The FBI did not stop there. “It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency.”