Tipsheet

House GOP on White House Censorship Attempts: 'The Type of Behavior We Would Expect From a Cuban Dictator'

On Thursday, 189 members of Congress, led by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), penned a letter to President Biden urging his administration to cease pressuring private social media companies to censor Democrat-deemed “disinformation” on their platforms.

The letter, which was posted to the House Energy and Commerce Committee's official Twitter account, addressed President Biden and his administration’s “ongoing efforts to pressure private companies to censor speech that it disagrees with,” as well as comparing the president to a “Cuban dictator.”

“The Democrat Party has been attacking the First Amendment since day 1 of your administration,” the letter states. “It is the type of behavior we would expect from a Cuban dictator, not a President of the United States who is also a former Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary.”

The letter rips into Biden’s presidency, citing instances of members of the Democrat Party pressuring tech companies to undermine free speech on their platforms. Notably, the Wuhan lab leak Facebook fiasco is mentioned in detail.

“It is also clear from recent history that certain information related to COVID-19 that was once labeled as ‘misinformation’ is now viewed quite differently. For example, until recently, Facebook would not allow any discussion on its platform about the lab leak theory, and for months your chief medical advisor denounced any suggestion that COVID-19 may have escaped the Wuhan lab. Presumably, your administration would have flagged content about the lab leak theory as ‘disinformation’ and demanded social media companies suppress such speech. But you would have been wrong. This is the problem with your censorship mission. Not only are attacking the First Amendment, but your ‘truth’ might be wrong.”

Several signers of the letter weighed in on Twitter to share their thoughts on censorship, free speech, and the Biden administration colluding with Big Tech.

The letter concludes with a request for the president to provide a complete run-down of social media companies the Biden administration is working with to censor “disinformation,” lists of “disinformation”-flagged social media posts, and users banned from said platforms for spreading “disinformation.”

“As the President of the United States, you have a duty to defend the Constitution,” the letter states. “Every American cherishes free speech, but your administration is attacking this fundamental right.”