Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) called on the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to investigate social media platform X after the site appeared to block users from following Vice President Harris’ campaign account on Monday. fair.
Nadler Letter asks Chief Justice Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to look into the “serious and urgent issue of censorship” on the platform.
Harris launched her presidential campaign on Monday after President Biden ended his re-election bid. Your campaign account, @KamalaHQHe quickly gained over a million followers on X.
“Regardless of political ideology, Americans have a protected interest in receiving communications from Vice President Harris regarding her candidacy,” Nadler wrote. “Vice President Harris, in turn, has the right to communicate with the American people as she runs for the highest office in the land.”
The letter provides examples of users seeing “limit reached” and other errors when trying to follow the Harris account.
“These error messages make no sense. Users experiencing these issues are free to follow other accounts and do not violate potential request limits,” Nadler wrote.
“This suggests that X may be intentionally strangling or blocking Vice President Harris’ ability to communicate with potential voters,” he continued. “If true, such action would amount to blatant censorship based on political and viewpoint discrimination – issues that this Committee has clearly taken very seriously.”
“Given your long history of fighting political discrimination on the ‘urban squares’ platform of American discourse, I trust you will join me in requesting additional information from X regarding this apparent censorship of a candidate for President of the United States,” Nadler wrote to Jordan. “The Committee shall immediately initiate an investigation and request, at a minimum, the following information from X.”
Jordan has long criticized what he describes as censorship of political speech by social media platforms. Last year, he issued subpoenas to three government agencies accused of pressuring social media sites to suppress certain speech, especially regarding information about COVID-19 during the pandemic.
Elon Musk, owner of X, has been critical of Harris since she announced her candidacy. Musk endorsed former President Trump last week and committed tens of millions of dollars to support his campaign.
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