Sessions preparing to act on social media censorship against conservatives

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September 6, 2018

Attorney General Jeff Sessions will meet with state attorneys general later this month to discuss whether tech companies like Twitter and Facebook may be “intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas,” the Justice Department said Wednesday in a statement.

Per the Washington Post, the department’s announcement came after the White House last week said it would explore regulating Google – and mere minutes after senior executives from Twitter and Facebook finished testifying before a Senate panel on the tech companies’ efforts to combat misinformation on their respective platforms.

DOJ spokesman Devin O’Malley said the meeting will also consider whether platforms “may have harmed competition” with their actions, suggesting an antitrust angle against the firms.

Lawyers from the DOJ listened to the Senate hearing “closely,” though allegations of bias against conservatives played a relatively minor role in that hearing. However, this hot-button topic was the focus of a later hearing Wednesday afternoon before the House Energy & Commerce Committee featuring only Twitter.

Wednesday’s announcement significantly raises the legal and political stakes for the tech companies, as federal policymakers have recently criticized the social media platforms but have so far refrained from taking concrete actions.