Facebook censored First Amendment speech: Rep. Jim Jordan
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, tells 'The Ingraham Angle' how Facebook reportedly worked with the Biden administration to censor Americans.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, shared a series of social media posts explaining how the Biden White House reportedly worked with Facebook to "censor" Americans.
"Never-before-released internal documents subpoenaed by the Judiciary Committee PROVE that Facebook and Instagram censored posts and changed their content moderation policies because of unconstitutional pressure from the Biden White House," Jordan wrote Thursday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
"During the first half of 2021, social media companies like Facebook faced tremendous pressure from the Biden White House—both publicly and privately—to crack down on alleged ‘misinformation,’" he continued. "In April 2021, a Facebook employee circulated an email for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg, writing: ‘We are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the [Biden] White House’ to remove posts."
Jordan highlighted that one of the posts the White House wanted to be removed was a Leonardo DiCaprio COVID-19 vaccine meme.
"It was a meme! It was one of these like class action lawsuits. It said, you know, 'if you've been harmed by COVID, call 1-800... one of these kind of things. So they were even censoring a meme for goodness [sake]. Some humor!," he explained on "The Ingraham Angle."
"They knew it was wrong. One of those Facebook executives said ‘this is a significant incursion into the boundaries of free expression.’ That is a fancy way of saying this violates the First Amendment for goodness sake."
The GOP lawmaker argued Facebook wanted to keep a "cozy" relationship with the White House so the company "censored First Amendment speech."
Messenger and Facebook app logos are displayed on a mobile phone screen for illustration photo. Krakow, Poland on January 23, 2023. ((Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images))
A federal judge earlier this month limited some Biden administration officials and agencies from communicating with social media companies to moderate content.
Jordan told host Laura Ingraham that both he and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., introduced the Free Speech Protection Act that would penalize employees who censor speech.
FEDERAL COURT RULES BIG TECH HAS NO ‘FREEWHEELING FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT TO CENSOR’
"...If you're in the government and you're doing what was happening there [at Facebook], you get fired. You don't get your pension benefits. There can be civil liability that you're subject to. You lose any security clearance you may have," he said. "We want real penalties for people in the government engaging what Professor [Jonathan] Turley called this censorship by surrogate, this coercion, this pressure from government on private companies to censor speech."
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report
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