U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, has subpoenaed the CEOs of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft for documents related to their content moderation and government communications.
Jordan tweeted that the queries are related to "Big Tech’s reported collusion with the federal government." The Ohio Republican and other GOP members have accused the tech companies of suppressing conservative viewpoints on their platforms.
- Jordan initially asked the companies to voluntarily turn over documents and communications by March 23, 2023.
- On Wednesday, he escalated the effort by sending subpoena letters to Sundar Pichai of Alphabet; Andy Jassy of Amazon.com, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta Platforms, and Satya Nadella of Microsoft.
- Jordan said the House Judiciary Committee wants to understand the extent to which the U.S. executive branch "coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech" on matters such as COVID-19 policy.
- Twitter was not included in the requests, Jordan explained, because it "set a benchmark" for transparency regarding its relations with the government by releasing the so-called Twitter Files.
- At least two of the companies — Microsoft and Meta — have said they've already started producing documents in an effort to fulfill the committee's requests.
