RFK Jr. testifies at a House hearing over online censorship as the GOP elevates Biden’s rival
By Lisa Mascaro And Ali Swenson, The Associated Press on July 20, 2023.
WASHINGTON (AP) – House Republicans claimed government censorship of online speech at a public hearing Thursday, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifying despite requests from outside groups to disinvite the Democratic presidential candidate after his recent antisemitic remarks. The Republican-led Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is amplifying GOP claims that conservatives and others are being unfairly targeted by technology companies that routinely work with the government to try to stem the spread of disinformation online. In opening remarks, the panel’s chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, cited what he portrayed as examples of censorship, including a White House request to Twitter to remove a post from Kennedy about COVID-19 vaccines. “There was nothing in there that was factually inaccurate,” Jordan claimed about the tweet from Kennedy, which aired unproven suggestions about the vaccine’s effect on certain demographic groups. “Just the facts.” Jordan said, “It’s why Mr. Kennedy is running for president – to help us expose and stop what’s going on.” The top Democrat on the panel, Del. Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands, said the Republican majority is giving a platform to Kennedy and others to promote conspiracy theories and a rallying cry for “bigotry and hate.” “This is not the kind of free speech I know,” Plaskett said. Plaskett implored her colleagues to rethink their approach, “Abusive rhetoric does not need to be promoted in the halls of the People’s House.” The Big Tech companies have adamantly denied the GOP assertions and say they enforce their rules impartially for everyone regardless of ideology or political affiliation. And researchers have not found widespread evidence that social media companies are biased against conservative news, posts or materials. The hearing comes after a federal judge recently sought to halt the Biden administration from working with the social media companies to monitor misinformation and other online postings. An appellate court temporarily paused the order. Republicans are eager to elevate Kennedy, heir to the famous American political family, who in April announced his 2024 campaign for president. The son of Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of John F. Kennedy is mounting a long-shot Democratic primary challenge to President Joe Biden. A watchdog group asked the panel’s chairman, Jordan, to drop the invitation to Kennedy after the Democratic presidential candidate falsely suggested COVID-19 could have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. In the filmed remarks first published by The New York Post, Kennedy said “there is an argument” that COVID-19 “is ethnically targeted” and that it “attacks certain races disproportionately.” After the video was made public, Kennedy posted on Twitter that his words were twisted and denied ever suggesting that COVID-19 was deliberately engineered to spare Jewish people. He called for the Post’s article to be retracted. But Kennedy has a history of comparing vaccines – widely credited with saving millions of lives – with the genocide of the Holocaust during Nazi Germany, comments for which he has sometimes apologized. An organization that Kennedy founded, Children’s Health Defense, currently has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Jordan said that while he disagreed with Kennedy’s remarks, he was not about to drop him from the panel. Speaker Kevin McCarthy took a similar view, saying he did not want to censor Kennedy. Ahead of the hearing, Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia said Kennedy holds “vile” beliefs. “By promoting Mr. Kennedy, Republicans are deliberately providing a platform to amplify hate speech,” he said. The panel wants to probe the way the federal government works with technology companies to flag postings that contain false information or downright lies. Hanging over the debate is part of federal communications law, Section 230, which shields technology companies like Twitter and Facebook from liability over what’s said on their platforms. Lawmakers on the panel are also expected to receive testimony from Emma-Jo Morris, journalist at Breitbart News, who has reported extensively on Biden’s son, Hunter Biden; and D. John Sauer, a former Solicitor General in Missouri who is now a special Assistant Attorney General at the Louisiana Department of Justice involved in the lawsuit against the Biden administration. Ahead of the hearing, Morris tweeted part of her opening remarks in which she described an “elaborate censorship conspiracy” that she claimed sought to halt her reporting of Hunter Biden. The U.S. has been hesitant to regulate the social media giants, even as outside groups warn of the rise of hate speech and misinformation that can be erosive to civil society. ___ The Associated Press”¯receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content. 24-23
