As if the First Amendment isn’t enough, Republicans in the House Oversight Committee plan to introduce two bills aimed at making sure the federal government does not collude with social media platforms to limit free speech under the guise of fighting “misinformation.”
Related: The White House’s most brazen, entitled, social media censorship demands
Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) will introduce a bill that would expand the Hatch Act, a law that prevents federal employees from taking part in political activities in their official roles.
“The Biden administration has eroded Americans’ First Amendment rights by bullying social media companies to censor certain views and news on their platforms,” Comer told Fox News. “Biden administration officials are quick to label inconvenient facts as disinformation and then pressure social media companies to suppress content on their platforms.”
The bill would also make censorship by a federal government employee “an illegal federal personnel activity subject to disciplinary action” and prevent “senior federal officials,” including political appointees, from participating in censorship whether or not it is in their official positions.
The second bill, to be introduced by Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) would require the government to report to Congress every incident where the government agency has engaged in censorship of legal speech in the past five years.
