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▶ 0:20:56Luke how are you good
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▶ 0:22:49committee will come to order without objection the chair is authorized to declare recess at any time we welcome everyone to today's hearing on the censorship industrial complex the chair now recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina Mr not to lead us in the Pledge Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible
▶ 0:23:19with liy and justice for all we appreciate everyone being here today for this important hearing uh we'll start with opening statements chairs recognize what a difference a few make four years ago president Trump was banned from all platforms Twitter Facebook YouTube today he has his own platform he's back on all the others and of course he's president of the United States four years ago
▶ 0:23:49Democrat members of Congress sent a letter to telecommunication companies pressuring them to kick Fox and Newsmax off of a cable network work today both are still on both are doing fine fox has more viewers than MSNBC and CNN combined four years ago the White House was actively pressuring big Tech to censor Americans you don't have to take my word for it Mark Zuckerberg wrote the committee a letter told us it was going on he said the Biden Administration
▶ 0:24:19pressured us to censor we did it we're sorry we ain't going to do it anymore today they've changed their policies got rid of the independent fact checkers and actually embraced the First Amendment imagine that and maybe the best example of what they were doing happened on the third day of the administration example we've highlighted many times in this Committee in the last Congress third day of the Biden Administration there was an email sent from Clark Humphrey to Twitter email said wanted to flag the below
▶ 0:24:50tweet and we hope you can get moving on the process for having it removed ASAP take down this tweet as soon as possible and who was the Tweet by who did the Tweet the guy who's going to be named Secretary of Health and Human Services here sometime this week Robert F Kennedy who just happened to be the guy who was going to run against the very people trying to take down the take down the Tweet what did the Tweet say Hank eron's tragic death is part of a wave of suspicious death among elderly closely following administration
▶ 0:25:20of the vaccine he received the vaccine on January 5th to inspire other black Americans to get the vaccine there is not one thing in that two- sentence tweet that's not true absolutely true but the Biden Administration was pressuring to take it down that's when we the term actually it's Mr shellenberg term the censorship industrial complex that's what it is right there front and center and it's much broader than that by the way the guy who authored this tweet who's going to be voted by the United States Senate to be the next secretary of Health and
▶ 0:25:50Services we had him as a witness in front of this committee two years ago and when RFK Jr came in to testify Democrats made a motion to go to Executive session executive session kick out so that no one could hear what RFK Jr was going to testify to in a hearing censorship you can't make this stuff up two years ago we learned that 51 former Intel officials lied to the
▶ 0:26:20country when they said the hunb laptop story had all the classic GE marks of a Russian information operation today all 51 of those people have lost their security clearance few years ago garm the misnamed Global Alliance for responsible media was coordinating an effort with major advertisers to limit ads on conservative platforms and websites today garma is out of business climate action 100
▶ 0:26:50a few years ago coordinate an effort to of financial institutions to pressure companies to reduce oil and gas emissions and production ction today climate action 100 out of business few years ago the Stanford internet Observatory was working today they're out of business inam was doing the same thing a few years ago today they've operation what a difference a few years can make and so much of this change started in October of 2022 when Elon
▶ 0:27:21Musk purchased Twitter I think he said something like I didn't spend $44 billion to buy Twitter I spent 44 billion to save the First Amendment and of course that effort began with the Twitter files and two of the Twitter files authors are with us today as Witnesses Matt taiii wrote the very first Twitter file and I think 11 or 12 others over the time that all that information was coming out Mr shellenberger was also an author and as I said earlier he's the guy who gave coined the term
▶ 0:27:51the censorship industrial complex big government working with big universities working with other government agencies the White House working in all this pressuring big Tech to censor Americans speech both Democrats both award-winning journalists both Democrats at the time when they testified last Congress both award-winning J journalists both testified multiple times in front of this Con uh this committee last Congress and what was their reward for coming forward in defending the First
▶ 0:28:22Amendment they were attacked they were referred to in this committee as so-called journalists even though they won all kinds of awards that are best-selling authors they were asked to disclose their sources in a hearing by democrats in in front of this committee and they were named personally in a letter by the FTC chair Lena Khan When Miss Khan asked Elon Musk who were the journalists you were talking to
▶ 0:28:52and of course maybe most importantly we all remember that at the very moment Mr taibe was testifying in front of this committee the IRS was knocking on his door just one big coincidence very time very time he's talking to this committee testifying in front of this committee the IRS was knocking on his door Miss Superman was targeted for covering the trucker blockade in Canada she also testified last year in front of this committee and she warned
▶ 0:29:23us she's ahead of her time she warned us about what was coming in Europe and around the world with the censorship efforts we're seeing in other Western Nations one of the things she said when she testified almost two years ago she said what is under threat is a core value of Western Civilization never forget that powerful statement and that's what's at stake here so I appreciate the work you've all done what we've been able to uncover appreciate the work of the president
▶ 0:29:53and Mr musk and what he's what he's started with the Twitter files and then what we were able to do with all these other platforms and the dramatic change we have seen but I am nervous about what's happening in Europe because it's the Digital Services act they are using to pressure tech companies to censor globally which impacts Americans as well and this is something the committee is going to look into as we move forward but I want to thank you all for being here today with that I would recognize the ranking member for his opening statement
▶ 0:30:23thank you very much Mr chairman and thanks to all of our Witnesses today the wrecking ball of right-wing authoritarianism is swinging right through Congress and coming directly at the freedoms of the press and the people right now the self-appointed CEO of this operation is the unelected bureaucrat and aspiring techno dictator Elon Musk who Steve Bannon calls a truly evil individual trying to create a technate in which he's King and most of us are reduced to the status of
▶ 0:30:53surfs break things and break things fast Steve Bannon says is musk's M Mo deao president musk and his nocturnal Doge musite youth Brigade have now taken control of dozens of federal computer databases in order to dismantle entire federal agencies and programs that we in Congress created and funded with Appropriations to keep our people safe and secure and healthy just this week the Consumer
▶ 0:31:23Financial Protection Bureau the agency that lowered overdraft fees from from $38 to $5 and cut credit card late fees from an average of $32 to $8 for American consumers saving us billions of dollars an agency is actually stopped corporate ripoff artists from stealing $21 billion from us got a stop work order from Elon Musk the billionaire
▶ 0:31:54plutocrats want to dismantle the EPA which protects our are and water in the NIH which promotes life-saving scientific and medical research yesterday Donald Trump banned the Associated Press a 179 year old newspaper organization from the white house because it declines to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America this is straightup press censorship based on retaliatory Viewpoint discrimination
▶ 0:32:24Trump's DOD kicked out eight news groups that had space in the Pentagon but which ask skeptical questions of the new secretary including the New York Times NBC News and the Washington Post all ousted in favor Outlets willing to Faithfully Advance the party line of the state like Breitbart in one American News Network Mr chairman I despair sometimes when I reflect how far this war on representative democracy and the rights of the press and the people is already
▶ 0:32:54gone and how far it might go but then Mr chairman I confess I think about you I think about you because you and I a mega Republican a Conservative Republican and a liberal Democrat have always shared a common commitment to the First Amendment this gives me hope as you've put it quote the first amendment is first for a reason without it we cannot enjoy our other Liberties so I tell myself that if things got really bad here if we began to look more like orban's illiberal
▶ 0:33:24democracy in Hungary or Putin's Russia where journalists end up in prison for their writings and young people are jailed for expressing anti-war sentiments and opposition leaders like Alexi naon are poisoned and die mysteriously in jail or Kim jong-un's North Korea or she's China authoritarian dictatorships where all must worship the orders of the dear deified leader I will call upon you as a colleague chairman Jordan whom I have known to
▶ 0:33:54work seriously across the aisle sometimes to come defend political freedom in America these are dark times but in the past we've agreed strongly on the fundamental importance of free speech free press the right to assemble the right to petition for redress of grievances free exercise of religion and no establishment of a state religion I'm proud that you and I work together to move the Press act which passed this committee unanimously in the house by Voice vote last Congress to protect
▶ 0:34:25reporters against compulsory dis disclosure of their sources and their notes and you supported my resolution against blasphemy laws around the world used to torment Christians Hindus Muslims and freeth thinkers everywhere we have clashed vigorously and we no doubt will continue to do so through this very difficult period but forgive me if I quote Abraham Lincoln the great founder of your party who said we are not enemies but friends we must not be enemies though
▶ 0:34:55passion may have strained it must not break the bonds of affection I hope we can call on these bonds if Elon Musk or anyone else in the executive branch seeks to destroy our constitutional freedoms and the powers of congress although this hearing has been arranged to Bel labor a rather tiresome point that has been made ad nauseum for the last several years it actually gestures at an important issue specifically whether social media platforms like metanx should be treated as common
▶ 0:35:25carriers and pushed to be open to all speakers in all content regardless of how dangerous or extreme or false it may be or whether they should be seen as private speakers who have their own freedom to exclude any content that violates their own policies the way that newspapers and TV stations do it's a it's a fascinating problem but it's clear as a matter of law that there are private entities that these are private entities and speakers who control their own speech despite the fact that they are protected by section
▶ 0:35:55230 which immunizes them from liability for other people's defamation and fraud and other criminal and tortous Communications uh posted on their platforms the status of 230 is something we've discussed that we should seriously examine in a thoughtful way uh since the internet has clearly gotten off the ground and doesn't need this kind of subsidy anymore but what I insist upon is that we be consistent in our treatment of the tech Giants you pushed them hard Mr chairman to remove objective
▶ 0:36:26factchecking and let all of the extreme right-wing forces get back on the internet you pushed for an absolute and wideopen Market in speech but then you should push them equally hard not to censor dissenting viewpoints whether they come from the uh anti-immigration wing of the magga movement like Steve Bannon or Laura lomer who says she has been shadowbanned on X by Elon Musk or from the populace left as when musk purged his platform of journalists critical
▶ 0:36:56of him and other accounts critical of him back in 2022 even one of your own Witnesses today Mr TBI was privately censored or de Amplified by Elon Musk and I assume must walk on eggshells now in order not to get kicked off of that platform but I'll be interested to hear what he says about it if you use our Congressional bully pulpit to stand up for the rights of extreme right-wing speakers on these private platforms you should stand up for the rights of anti-musk
▶ 0:37:27speakers to be on that platform too but right now the issue is this we Face a profound First Amendment crisis in the actions taken by this Administration one of my constituents who's serving in the armed forces Mr chairman alerted me this past Friday to book banss by the government at their kids Department of Defense school where they're closing the library for a week to complete a purge of books that appear to offend the new government Orthodoxy against Dei and gender ideology
▶ 0:37:57that's fine if you hate those ideologies whatever you think they are but this is naked content and Viewpoint censorship of books I hope you would join me in denouncing The Purge of books the stripping of books from the Department of Defense libraries or any other public libraries in America or for American citizens when this father saw a school official removing not just books but posters of Susan banthony and Dr King my constituent asked why they left up the poster of
▶ 0:38:27Leonardo D Vinci and he was told that's a real historical figure more sweepingly Trump and his FCC are using their powers to investigate Sue and threaten news groups that dare to criticize the administration Trump is suing CBS for 20 billion dollars in Damages because check this out he believes an interview with kamla Harris produced too favorable an impression of her so that that means that I could sue Fox News because I think they're
▶ 0:38:57interviews with Trump produce too favorable an impression of him I mean this is lunacy and now exploiting his asserted unitary executive powers Trump is unleashing his sick of Fant FCC chairman Brendan Carr on every News Group whose stories he doesn't approve of actually threatening to pull the government broadcast licenses for ABC CBS NBC PBS and NPR nothing of a hostile nature of course has taken place against news
▶ 0:39:28which is now the deao state approved media enjoys immunity from the repression visited on its liberal competitors what is this North Korea it reminds me of the treatment of Michael Cohen Donald Trump's former private lawyer who worked for Trump for more than a decade and became Deputy Finance chairman of the RNC he went to jail for Donald Trump for among other things lying to Congress and making unlawful corporate contributions in the stormy Dan Daniel coverup Affair
▶ 0:39:58when Cohen was released from prison during covid to home arrest in probation with an ankle bracelet he was abruptly rearrested and taken back to prison when he refused to sign a statement saying he would not speak to the media or publish a book about Donald Trump everybody's got to hear this he was thrown into solitary confinement where he remained until a United States District Court Judge found this to be a clear first am Amendment violation and an
▶ 0:40:29outrage and freed him immediately what is this Castro's Cuba Putin's Russia the Free Speech violations taking place now against Department of Justice prosecutors and FBI agents are equally astounding the First Amendment forbids forbids reprisal and punishment against professional government employees for political reasons yet Trump has fired and demoted dozens of federal prosecutors many of whom he had appointed his first Administration simply
▶ 0:40:59for doing their jobs including Prosecuting January 6 violators Trump subordinates also asked for a Roundup of information about more than 6,000 hardworking FBI agents who were assigned to work the January 6th probe a dangerous blatantly unconstitutional order which was enjoined by a US District Court in a case brought by the Association of FBI agents the administration is attempting to do its work I'm about to finish up Mr
▶ 0:41:29chairman thank you a lot I see a lot of pages there I was just wondering yeah I'm I'm going to speak fast like you watch me do it all right um look this is happening in secret they're keeping the press the Congress and people in the dark I know you feel strongly about government transparency as you do about Free Speech the administration's illegally fired 17 inspectors General totally violating the statute which says they've got to come to Congress first 30 days before they fire them and set forth the specific explanation for for why that's happening now
▶ 0:41:59finally you and I are both Fierce advocates for the First Amendment and government transparency both of us see in the First Amendment a right that protects everybody without regard to Viewpoint substance or politics of the message and if we stand up strong for the First Amendment if we defend not just the speech we agree with which is easy but the speech we oppose which is hard then we will be constitutional Patriots and we will protect a truly free soci soety when we together introduced our free flow of information
▶ 0:42:30act you said all rights protected in the First Amendment need to be defended we had real success let's work together again to end the attacks on news organizations to demand transparency from the administration and to allow every American to exercise his or her Free Speech without being intimidated harassed or prosecuted thank you and I yield back without objection all other opening statements will be included in the record we will now introduce today's Witnesses Mr Matt Tai is a journalist author and founder of Racket news he reported on the original Twitter
▶ 0:43:00files in 2022 showing the federal government's pervasive involvement in the company's content moderation decisions he is author in journalist who has earned the national magazine award for commentary in 2008 the izy award for outstanding independent journalism in 2020 and he has authored 10 books four of which were New York Times bestsellers Mr TBE testified twice last Congress before the select committee uh select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government we're glad to have you back uh Mr Michael Shelor also also report on the original Twitter files in 2022 more recently
▶ 0:43:30he released the Twitter files Brazil which highlighted the Brazilian government's attempt to censor descending opinions on X Mr shellenberger is the founder and president of environmental progress an independent nonprofit research organization based in Berkeley California the bestselling author of San Francisco and apocalypse never and was named a Time Magazine hero of the environment and is a greenbook award winner last Congress he testified twice before our committee and before the house Foreign Affairs committee on the Brazilian government's censorship efforts
▶ 0:44:01Miss Rupa zmana is a Canadian journalist for the Free Press uh who has written extensively about foreign censorship laws her testimony before the select subcommittee in November 2023 warned of the coming censorship legislation in Canada Brazil Ireland France and the EU she has reported on the weaponization of foreign hate speech laws to Target voices that descent from Liberal Orthodoxy Free Press founder Barry Weiss wrote that quote if there's one theme that runs through rupa's work it is this the Urgent threat to
▶ 0:44:31our liberties by the combined power of government and big Tech and finally Mr Craig Aaron is the president and co-ceo of Free Press not to be confused with the Free Press uh free press action a nonprofit organization that Advocates on media and Technology policy prior to joining free press in 2004 he worked as an investigative reporter at public Citizen and was the managing editor of in these times a bi bi-weekly political magazine we welcome all our Witnesses thank
▶ 0:45:01them for appearing we will Begin by swearing you in would you please rise and raise your right hand do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge information and belief so help you God let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative you can be seated thank you um and again thank you all for being here today we really do appreciate the work you've done over this so many years and and now coming back uh in some cases for your third time in front
▶ 0:45:31of the committee please know that your written testimony will be entered into the record in its entirety accordingly we ask you summarize your testimony in five minutes uh we will start with Miss zuan thank you what if I were to ask you what are the most repressive governments around the world when it comes to Freedom who suppresses freedom of speech and Enterprise the most you'd surely say North Korea Iran Russia but what if I told you Germany should be on that list
▶ 0:46:01or for that matter France or Canada where I'm from should be on that list too I'm not saying these countries are the same as the fear-based authoritarian societies of North Korea and Iran not by a long shot but I am suggesting that some of the free countries are not in fact living up to their Promises of Liberty and that many allies of the US have gotten in the habit of using the government against po political enemies or disfavored companies in Scotland hate crime legislation
▶ 0:46:31adopted last year criminalizes anything that stir up hatred against an array of protected groups including the disabled the old the LGBT community and others in Australia the government started enacting hate crime laws just last week that impose jail sentences on those who display hateful symbols like swastikas in Germany authorities have ramped up their policing of online hate speech by arresting people whove made offens of posts and seizing their laptops and other devices last year the German government
▶ 0:47:02banned a far-right magazine for anti-human hate speech and agitation and shut down a protest because the protesters were Irish and speaking Gaelic rather than English or German in the UK the police have taken to arresting people who post videos and social media accounts deemed offensive they've been sent to jail for weeks and months at a time as my colleague Maddie currence reported for the Free Press British people have been arrested and evicted for antisocial Behavior such as praying silently near abortion clinics
▶ 0:47:32the orwellian Big Brother punishing you for expressing an impolitic thought is now the law of the land in the land of Orwell in the European Union the Digital Services act bars the dissemination of any content deemed harmful or illegal but doesn't provide much clarity about what that is right now EU officials are going after Elon Musk threatening his platform x with fines because he endorsed the afd party in Germany
▶ 0:48:02but make no mistake a precedent is being said in the future other people with unpopular politics and agendas will be targeted back in Canada Liberal Party leaders including the lame duck Justin Trudeau have come up with tons of terrible ideas that would regulate what you can say or do as I reported for the Free Press they want to push the limits of censorship one proposal would find you for saying good things about fossil fuels another proposal arresting people for hate crimes that have yet to be committed
▶ 0:48:33the ongoing political turmoil in Canada is the only reason these things have not yet happened but understand this there's nothing stopping the next liberal government from moving forward in making these proposals the law you may be thinking well that's a shame for the Australians or Canadians or Brits or whoever but we're not them this is the United States and we have a long story tradition of protecting First Amendment rights American courts have ruled time and again on the side of the protesters the flag burners the neo-nazis the
▶ 0:49:03Assumption being that if the most offensive speech is protected then all speech is protected until recently as you're no doubt aware it was a left in America that felt most passionately about defending those rights historically the people who stood up for unpopular opinions were ACLU lawyers and academics it was people on the right who were less enthusiastic about the full-throated exchange of ideas whatever the case I'm a great admirer of Americans affinity for free expression and I cannot stress enough how unique this conversation
▶ 0:49:33is the one that we're having right now in no other country that I'm aware of do people argue with such passion for our right to say or protest or believe whatever we want but I am worried because we live in an illiberal moment this moment has been building for many years and there's many forces behind social political and economic for one thing the left has lost its passion for the First Amendment now it's true that there are plenty of conservatives who would prefer that school libraries not include books about gender fluidity or critical race
▶ 0:50:03Theory there are others who've gone so far as to ban authors like Tony Morris Morrison or Margaret Atwood all that is wrong but I'm less concerned about this trend than I am about the censorship that has happened under Joe Biden in partnership with Washington much of corporate America including Banks and social media companies this partnership affects far more people than a relatively small number of school boards canceling ibraim kend's how to be an anti-racist and it's harder to detect when a school board removes a book
▶ 0:50:33from its shelves is usually a meeting and a public airing of idea of opinions but when meta or the Bank of America decide that one of their users or account holders is voice the wrong opinion they can take action that the vast majority of us will never know about they can suppress an algorithm remove a book from the digital shelf suspend a checking account which raises a very frightening Prospect we do not even know that freedom is being taken away in case you think I'm overstating things consider the relatively recent phenomena of De banking which I've
▶ 0:51:04reported on for the Free Press where big banks have quietly ended their relationship with customers who have unpopular opinions banks have targeted people on both sides of the aisle from president Trump's most fervent supporters to Muslim Americans among others what's concerning isn't so much who has been wrong but the creeping illiberal tide that has swept America over the last several years but the number of tech CEOs who attended President Trump's inauguration gives me hope I'm told this signals the dawn of a new era in America a return to First principles
▶ 0:51:34many of you may have misgivings about so many billionaires steering National policy and for good reason but if the billionaires coming around to president Trump means they're coming back to their Silicon Valley roots and their belief in an unfettered Marketplace of ideas if this means that the shadow Bannings and mysterious manipulations on social media will stop if this means that we can speak more freely now well that is a great thing and that is the most important thing because as you know all Freedom stems from this freedom
▶ 0:52:04I leave you with this thought the city on a hill that is America with its Abiding Faith in people's right to speak freely and think freely is as important today as it has ever been maybe more at a time when we're told over and over that we're suffering through late stage capitalism or that Western liberal values are wrongheaded I want to emphasize that there's nothing wrong-headed about standing up for the Liberties that you the Americans have so valiantly defended for so long Liberties that other people's and governments
▶ 0:52:34are too cowardly to stand up for in some places this commitment to Liberty es and flows it has more to do with prevailing opinion or what's trending the great wisdom of America has been always to Rise Above This to ignore what whatever was in or out of fashion and to commit with unwavering fervor to your first principles principles that must be defended now more than ever thank you thank you Mr shellenberger you recognize I let Miss Superman go a little long but I hope
▶ 0:53:05you'll stay a little closer to five that was the makeup for Mr Rasin statement I think go right ahead chairman Jordan ranking member Rasin and members of the committee thank you for inviting my testimony nearly two years ago I testified and provided evidence to the subcommittee to a subcommittee of this committee about the existence of a censorship industrial complex a network of government agencies including the Department of Homeland Security government contractors including the Stanford internet Observatory and big Tech social media platforms that conspired
▶ 0:53:35to censor ordinary Americans and elected officials alike for holding disfavored views today the censorship industrial complex is on the defensive on January 20th 2025 just hours after his inauguration President Donald Trump signed an executive order on restoring freedom of speech and ending Federal censorship one week earlier meta CEO mark Zuckerberg announced we're going to dramatically reduce the amount of censorship on our platform Zuckerberg announced that he and meta would follow the lead of Elon musket X
▶ 0:54:05and create crowdsourced factchecking known as Community notes to replace much of the factchecking the company had Outsource others and thanks in large measure to the work of this committee's subcommittee on the weaponization of government last year as well as to the investigative reporting by those of us here today we were able to shine sunlight on some of the worst factors in the censorship industrial complex such as the Stanford internet Observatory which I singled out in my testimony 2 years ago in June of last year the observatory
▶ 0:54:36shut down in response to our expose unfortunately the censorship industrial complex remains almost entirely intact in in Europe Australia Britain Brazil and other nations in the west continue to seek new forms of censorship and information control including digital identification tied to social media my colleagues and I over two years into our research characterizing the censorship industrial complex and we continue to discover whole new institutions involved in sensorship the latest is
▶ 0:55:06the United States agency for International Development or usaid last October we published a report that noted that usaid had funded the creation of a censorship industrial complex in Brazil complete with thirdparty fact Checkers Committees of experts in charge of deciding for the entire Society what the truth is On Any Given issue and after I published the Twitter files Brazil last spring the Attorney General of Brazil opened a formal criminal investigation of me which is still ongoing in 2021 usaid even published
▶ 0:55:36a so-called disinformation primer that called for Advertiser Outreach to disrupt the funding and financial incentive to disinform such Advertiser Outreach was precisely The Advertiser boycott strategy used by groups with ties to the US intelligence Community those groups with uncritical support and amplification from the news media were able to use the strategy to successfully get Facebook and Twitter to censor more content and the European commission appears intent upon using its powers granted to it through the Digital
▶ 0:56:06Services act to demand that x Facebook and other platforms censor speech the commission last year threaten to finded X up to 6% of its annual Global revenue for failing to crack down on so-called false information and not giving handing over its data to small Committees of experts chosen by the commission to decide what is true and false to be sure the momentum is with the Free Speech Advocates we've won a number of important battles over the last two years but it's also clear that many governing and media Elites worldwide view expanding censorship of
▶ 0:56:36online platforms as a musthave not a nice to have feature of global governance the head of NATO nato-backed think tanks the European commission former president Barack Obama former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Bill Gates the United Nations the World Health Organization the world economic Forum influential think tanks at Harvard and Stanford elements of the dod the CIA the FBI the National Science Foundation the Department of Homeland Security and many others have all called for government censorship of so-called misinformation
▶ 0:57:06in recent years and it's not just censorship that's the problem the problem is that deep state agencies within the US government have for two decades sought to gain control over the production of news and other information around the world as part of ongoing covert and overt influence operations and that after 2016 multiple actors and several deep State US government agencies turned the tools of counterterrorism counterinsurgency and counter populism against the American
▶ 0:57:38people I strongly urge Congress to defund the censorship industrial complex and seek a proper accounting of the various efforts to fund it including secretly through pass through organizations and shell organizations like the ones employed by usaid to fund groups like occrp and hide US Government funding and control I further urge Congress to seek other ways to reduce the exposure of American social media users and companies to the threat of sensorship from Europe Britain Brazil and other nations we should respect National sovereignty
▶ 0:58:09but vice president Vance makes a good point when he asks why Americans should be spending our wealth and putting our lives on the line for Western European NATO members who are actively demanding censorship by American companies of our speech thank you very much uh thank you uh Mr T you recognized for 5 minutes Mr hit your microph hit your there thank you Mr chairman is um two years ago when Michael and I first
▶ 0:58:39testified before your weaponization of government subcommittee Democratic members called us so-called journalist suggested we were bought off scribes and questioned our ethics and our loyalties when we tried to answer we were told to shut up take our take off our tin foil hats and remember two things one there is no digital censorship and two if there is digital censorship it's for our own good I was shocked I thought the whole thing had to be a mistake there was no way the party that I gave votes to my whole life was now Pro censorship
▶ 0:59:09uh then last year I listened to John kery whom I voted for talked to the world economic Forum speaking about disinformation he said quote our first amendment stands as a major block to our ability to quote hammer it out of existence he complained that it's really hard to govern because people self- select where they go for their news which makes it quote much harder to consensus now I defended John kery when people said he looks French but Mar Anette would have been embarrassed by this speech
▶ 0:59:40he was essentially complaining that the peasants are self- selecting their own sources of media what's next letting them make up their minds lastly building consensus may be a politician's job but it's not mine as a citizen or as a journalist in fact making it hard hard to govern is exactly the media's job the failure to understand this is why we have a censorship problem this is an alamoo moment for the First Amendment most of America's closest allies as both uh rupo and Michael have pointed
▶ 1:00:10out um have already adopted Draconian speech laws we are surrounded the eu's new Digital Services Act is the most comprehensive censorship law ever instituted in a western Democratic Society ranking member Rasin you don't have to go as far as Russia or China to find people jailed for speech our allies in England now have an online safety act which empowers the government to jail people for nebulous offenses like false communication or causing psychological harm
▶ 1:00:41Germany France Australia Canada and other nations have implemented similar ideas these laws are totally incompatible with our system some of our own citizens have been harassed or even arrested in some of these countries but our government has not stood up for them why because many of our bureaucrats believe in these laws take usaid many Americans are now in a narware because they they learned about over $400 million going to an organization called internews whose Chief Genie bouro boasted to Congress
▶ 1:01:11about training hundreds of thousands of people in journalism but her views are almost identical to carries she gave a talk once about building trust and combating misinformation in India during the pandemic she said that after months of of a really beautifully unified covid-19 message vaccine enthusiasm Rose to 87% but when quote mixed information on vaccine efficacy got out hesitancy ensued we're paying this person to train journalists and she doesn't know that de press
▶ 1:01:42does not exist to promote Unity or political goals like vaccine enthusiasm that's propaganda not journalism poro also once said that to fight bad content we need to work really hard on exclusion l or inclusion lists and quote really need to focus our ad do ad dollars toward what she called the good news again if you don't know the fastest way to erode Trust in Media is by having government sponsor exclusion lists you shouldn't be getting a dollar in taxpayer
▶ 1:02:12money let alone 476 million of it and usaid is just a tiny piece of the censorship machine Michael and I saw across that long list of agencies collectively they've bought up every part of the news production line sources think tanks research factchecking anti- disinformation commercial media scoring and when all fail straightup censorship it is a giant closed messaging Loop whose purpose is to transform the Free Press into exactly that consensus
▶ 1:02:42machine there is no way to remove this Rod surgically the whole mechanism has to go is there right winess information hell yes uh it exists in every direction but I grew up a Democrat and don't remember remember being afraid of it at the time we figured we didn't need censorship because we thought we had the better argument obviously many of you lack the same confidence you took billions of dollars from taxpayers and you blew it on programs whose entire purpose was to tell them they're wrong about things they can see with their
▶ 1:03:12own eyes you sold us out and until these rather TI tiresome questions are answered this problem is not fixed thank you thank you Mr tyby Mr Aaron you're recognized for five minutes good morning and uh thank you for inviting me to testify today to my understanding this hearing is motivated by concerns over Free Speech censorship government interference with private companies and the influence of billionaires who control our media system and I share these concerns I worry
▶ 1:03:43about government censorship which is what the first amendment protects us against I worry about collusion between government officials and Powerful Tech Executives I worry about algorithmic discrimination use to push partisan agendas or spread hate I worry about independent journalists and whistleblowers being attacked harassed doxed or muzzled for asking hard questions or simply reporting facts and I think we should all be worried right now because we are facing a true Free
▶ 1:04:14emergency Elon Musk the owner of X and one of the richest men in the world is now embedded inside the federal government unelected and apparently unaccountable to anyone he's a special government employee with all the Privileges of a high-ranking official but no regard for transparency or the laws of this Congress musk also has shocking conflicts of interest and a giant social media megaphone that he uses to threaten and retaliate
▶ 1:04:44against his critics with his power to distort narratives and spread falsehoods he's fueling a constitutional crisis inside the government musk is attempting to tear down vital institutions sabotage essential programs carry out personal vendettas and terrify civil servants he sent a gang of hackers to breach core government systems giving him unfettered and unprecedented access to our most sensitive information yet members of this committee tasked
▶ 1:05:15with oversight have been blocked from even entering federal government buildings to investigate journalists trying to tell the public about the so-called Department of government efficiency are being harassed at musk's instigation or threatened with prosecution by the US attorney these government employees are actively trying to suppress speech about government activities this is a free speech emergency and it's not the only one Brendan Carr the chairman of the FCC wants
▶ 1:05:45to revoke broadcast licenses because he doesn't like the viewpoints he sees on TV that's censorship the FCC has also threatened news organizations over editorial decision-making reporting on law enforcement and basic factchecking the FCC is now threatening to block a merger sought by CBS at the same time that President Trump is suing the company for $20 billion because he didn't like how 60 Minutes edited an interview with the former vice
▶ 1:06:16president big media and tech companies Disney ABC meta maybe now CBS are paying tens of millions of dollars to settle specious lawsuit suits they appear to be paying off the president to Shield themselves from reprisal or to gain regulatory favors social media companies too are making drastic changes to content in response to the new Administration meta for example went from promising to step away from politics to actively pushing the president's
▶ 1:06:46agenda after Mr Trump threatened Mark Zuckerberg with life in prison if you were concerned about low-level officials sending email emails to social media staffers 5 years ago then you should actually be worried when all the billionaire owners of these companies line up on the de at the president's inauguration clutching million dooll checks to show their loyalty the Trump Administration is using the power of the government to shake down the media and quash dissent
▶ 1:07:16this country was founded on the premise that our public sphere and our Free Press should be protected against government manipulation or retribution including from the Pres president or from special government employees I'm a former journalist I'm sitting here on a panel with journalists and I may not agree with them but I will defend their right to speak and write without fear of intimidation and harassment by government officials without fear of unlawful government surveillance for simply speaking to their sources
▶ 1:07:46without fear of unconstitutional uh retaliation I hope we can agree on that I hope we can set aside our differences and speak out against true government censorship no matter who is in power free speech is not reserved for certain viewpoints Free Speech isn't meant to just protect the rich and Powerful Free Speech isn't just for billionaires the first amendment protects everyone's freedom and free expression and we must defend it thank you thank you Mr
▶ 1:08:16Aaron we'll now move to five minutes uh questions uh under the five- minute rule I should say and the gentleman from California Mr Isa is recognized thank you Mr chairman uh Mr taibe uh Mr eron went on for five minutes and the feel and the fact was he said multiple times that if you're a billionaire you're not qualified to do what has made you a billionaire if you're a billionaire
▶ 1:08:47corrupt now he was particularly uh assaulting uh Elon Musk let me just go through a couple of quick questions uh Elon Musk would you say that he's best known as rich or successful probably both depends on who you ask whom is he did he in fact reinvent launch so that we went from uh the inefficiency where we were paying the Russians
▶ 1:09:17to basically put our people in space to uh today 90 plus 92 plus% of all launches in the world are BX and they're done for a fraction of the cost uh yeah that's my understanding okay so you're a journalist not an employer per se but if you were going to employ somebody to take cost out of something would you would you find someone that reinvented Financial transactions then went on to reinvent space Lodge then went on to reinvent the automobile
▶ 1:09:47and did all of those successfully uh before he was my age okay now as a journalist you do look at who in government does what and you've done it uh globally but particularly you're an expert in the US how many elected officials look at uh tax returns or government documents directly how many how many elected officials do that for the United States government um I don't know I would like to know
▶ 1:10:18um I have officially officially the number is zero oh is it okay yeah it's 100% done by career bureaucrats in fact nobody elected does the the basic work of searching databases in doing that it just isn't part of the system the reality is that almost all of the Dives are either done by career people or people like deoe or Price Waterhouse Coopers the fact is looking for government inefficiency
▶ 1:10:48we have spent billions of dollars inefficiently looking for government inefficiency for decades isn't that true yeah I did a story on the failed audit of the dod that concluded yeah we had spent more a ton of money on those audits to no effect right so we've paid outside Auditors uh including some of the world's best and they've uh they've basically thrown in the towel as far as actually making a permanent change so when the president has a group of individuals go in with career people in the room
▶ 1:11:19uh and look for it and they find it is that a reason to uh go nah n n he's a billionaire rather than n n this is a disruptor of industries that has proven he can take massive amounts of cost out of doing things and as a result the United States of America would be would benefit by its money um repres representative I said that this some of this Falls outside my area of expertise um well it falls outside errands too so that's that's why I'm I'm
▶ 1:11:49bringing the point to you let me let me go on to something that is in your as a journalist if you took the many words and phonm of a half hour an hour interview and cut and pasted them to create a completely different set of answers to questions what would you be doing yeah that would be a typically that's a kind of deceptive editing that's I think that was the issue in the 60 Minutes case well wouldn't
▶ 1:12:19you call it outright fraud if if a person says X and you print y wouldn't you be sued for it if you maliciously and deliberately change the outcome in order to affect an an election potentially on behalf of a candidate it it kind of depends on the situation but I think uh most uh new organizations would be embarrassed to be caught doing that kind of thing and wasn't 60 minutes and CBS embarrassed when they got caught well they settled
▶ 1:12:49in the case apparently so that I think that speaks to that yes so in other words they were embarrassed it would seem that way from the outside well I'm glad you're here today and I just want to note for the record and ask you it be placed in the record uh last week we we put another piece of legislation in with rep Salazar bomgardner and Gil that in fact specifically is uh it provides for foreign government officials who engage in censorship of American speech to be in inadmissible or deported
▶ 1:13:20and uh I look forward to that going through the committee on a bipartisan basis gentleman yield back y back gentleman Yi's back the chair I recognizes the gentleman from New York Mr ner thank you Mr chairman Mr chairman uh president Trump has launched an allout assault on the Press don't take my word for it here is the president
▶ 1:13:52himself Trump publicly attacking a news going so far as to suggest it should lose its Federal broadcast license they've discussed issuing subpoenas for news organizations Prosecuting journalists and their sources and cutting funding for public media I think you have to do it I'm going to be bringing one against uh the people in Iowa their newspaper we're filing one on 60 Minutes a big part of CBS News against Bob Woodward and
▶ 1:14:22uh we have one very interesting on Pitzer we have to straighten out the press the President says we have to quote straighten out the press that should be chilling to anyone who believes in the First Amendment the Trump Administration is already targeting media Outlets that refused to praise the President yesterday the White House barred the Associated Press from the Oval Office because the news organization simply declined to change its style guide to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America Trump himself
▶ 1:14:52has made it abundantly clear that he thinks any Journal journalist who dares to criticize him is a quote enemy of the people he is even threatened to revoke the broadcast licenses we just saw that of news organizations that criticize his administration this assault on free speech is being orchestrated by Trump's pick for FCC chair Brendan Carr a right-wing co-author of project 2025 Carr is using his position to punish the news outlets that diverge from the White House's approved narrative acting in in
▶ 1:15:22violation of the Constitution federal law and the ic's own mission chairman car has decided to use the agency to harass and intimidate news organizations that stray from the White House's talking points one of car's first actions was to revive three complaints made to the FCC by a conservative group the center for American rights against ABC CBS and NBC for their critical coverage of president Trump for the record there was a complaint that car didn't revive of course it was a claim made against Fox
▶ 1:15:52News a news organization that agreed to pay an $800 million settlement to a private company Dominion voting system and admitted to promoting false claims of fraud during the 2020 election related to the company's voting machines Mr Aaron what message is Brendan cor and the administration sending by investigating ABC CBS and NBC but not Fox News uh thank you Congressman for the question uh I think this is you know a blatant abuse
▶ 1:16:23of power from commissioner Carr he's saying uh we're coming for you at the same time the president is literally negotiating a multi-billion dollar lawsuit settlement and he has pulled out all the stops he said I might not approve your merger he said I want to see the transcripts he's come back again and again and again I just imagine when a democratic FCC chair thought about like hey could we do an independent local study everyone was up in arms here we have the chairman of the FCC saying
▶ 1:16:53I'm going to use the power of my office to squeeze these news organizations either to settle or uh change or transform their coverage simply because the president and Mr Carr don't like it that's textbook government censorship thank you Mr Aaron the former chair of the FCC Mr car's predecessor Jessica Rosen worel said these complaints quote seek to weaponize the licensing authority of the FCC in a way that is fundamentally
▶ 1:17:23at odds with First to do so would set a dangerous precedent close quote she also warned the that the Agency quote should not be the president's speech please when Mr car was before the oversight committee last Congress he was asked a very simple question if the president directed the FCC to revoke ABC or NBC's broadcast license because he felt there were being unfair to him would you comply the answer should have been a simple and resounding no yet Mr Carr repeatedly refused to answer Mr Aaron what do you see as some of the most dangerous
▶ 1:17:54actions this Administration is currently taking to attack the freedom of the press and to silence critics of this Administration well Mr NE I appreciate you're lifting up the FCC because this is an agency that people don't necessarily know a lot about but it has an incredible amount of power over the public Airwaves over the wires that bring us our cable television uh and so far in his short time in office uh chairman Carr has used that position to go after journalists to file
▶ 1:18:24these very threatening letters questioning how individual reporters are covering stories of national importance uh to uh really abuse this power in ways that we've never seen before the FCC usually talks about licenses on very narrow terms you know if an owner has committed Major Crimes maybe there'll be an investigation in their license the idea that a news organization could be threatened because they asked a tough question of the president because
▶ 1:18:54they tried to fact check him during a debate because they edited their own news content before putting it out over the airwaves is preposterous and it's dangerous and I think it does really warrant the attention of this committee because it's quickly it's quickly getting out of hand he's expanding this he's started to go after cable companies to investigate their internal corporate practices this is this is all happening and it it and it only seems to be speeding up thank you Mr chairman I yield back gent yields
▶ 1:19:24back Mr elenberger is is the Press afraid to attack president Trump no I mean you can look at the front page of Politico every headline is an attack on President Trump but that's what Mr the ranking member of the subcommittee just said like they're afraid I mean ridiculous argument I yield to the Gent I recognize the gentleman from Arizona thank thank you Mr chairman two days ago Senator Chuck Schumer created an online portal for federal employees to disclose wrongdoing and abuses of power and in a way I'm kind of glad he did this he did
▶ 1:19:54this because I have been here for a while and there's a plethora of abuses of power I've seen particularly in the area of censorship um so at the top of my complaint list would probably be Joe Biden and his staff because they Contin continually pressured large social media platforms to change their content moderation policies to have a built-in bias system against any speech which even had a hint of criticism against the Administration and and uh you know we
▶ 1:20:24we do know one thing censorship can occur through an agent through a direct link to Government contact even though it's a private entity that's censoring we know that from the case law that that's come out but here we have Facebook admitted that it started censoring posts about covid originating from a Chinese lab and content critical of the vaccine after tense conversations with the Biden Harris Administration in which they were told to do more to combat speech which is since has
▶ 1:20:54been verified as true Facebook officials described one White House advisor as outrage that Facebook didn't remove a meme it was a joke about covid-19 that White House adviser was Andy slavit he would go on my list of people that you complain against President Biden himself said that Facebook was quote killing people close quote for not taking down this type of content which caused Facebook to change its policies further Facebook employees would later say that this decision quote stemmed from the continued
▶ 1:21:24criticism of our approach from the Biden Administration close quote Mark Zuckerberg even told Joe Rogan that people from the Biden Administration quote would call up our team and scream at them and curse to take down things that were true close quote the White House employed the same kind of pressure campaign with YouTube Amazon and other platforms we could also include Anthony fouchy in this L list since he perpetuated falsehoods about everything from the vaccine social distancing masks and more
▶ 1:21:55and he demanded that these social media companies clamp down on anyone including qualified scientists who dared say anything that was contradictory of him then there was sisa headed by Jen easterly who went out of her way to report posts on platform which they thought were too much against the narrative then there's the FBI who ordered platforms to censor the New York Post story about Hunter Biden's laptop despite knowing that the story was true because they had possession of the laptop and we could go on and on
▶ 1:22:25so but I want to I want to read I just this notion here is that after this committee's oversight and we did some good oversight president Trump's resounding Victory the entities that I've just mentioned sis the FBI um and dhs's cyber security have all stopped their direct censorship activities what do you think Miss submania is that how do we know that that's true how do we know that they've stopped their their
▶ 1:22:56activities sorry who has stopped their censorship activities well allegedly the FBI sisa and dhs's cyber Security Bureau well we we don't know we don't know anything for sure uh and I think this Administration is only getting started um by investigating these agencies um I think my own personal view on this is that um it's essentially baked into the system right now and it's going to be very hard to get rid of of these tools of censorship
▶ 1:23:27um often times they um the shape-shifting if you want to use that term they're recast into different uh tools but essentially it's the same tool tools of censorship that go after individuals and as I've reported on De banking I'm very very happy that this Administration is finally paying attention to this very important issue of ordinary Americans being censored being cut off the financial grid for having unpopular opinions
▶ 1:23:57uh I believe there was a senate Banking Committee uh hearing last week that heard um from Witnesses on the issue of debank which I reported on uh that's pretty scary so I'm I'm very very happy that this attention is finally getting this this issue is finally getting the attention it deserves and hopefully average Americans will not get debanked in the future but we don't know anything for sure it's still too early thank you and I want to just um comment on on Mr Aaron has said
▶ 1:24:27uh in his written statement he's defining censorship as requiring government action and yet um to in order to get first amendment protection yet the mury Missouri case which said that they the plaintiffs did not get protection because they could not directly link the actions of government officials to their instances of censorship that's very different than the Val case n versus Val where the courts in a unanimous opinion said because they could show a direct link
▶ 1:24:58that's that's the that's the the critical issue here and and we know that the Biden Administration and we could show that direct link that they were causing censorship they were and this is the Val case relying on the 1963 case they were using coercive tactics to get censorship and that's the distinction Mr Aaron thank you Mr chairman gentleman yields back gentleman recognizes the ranking member and thank you Mr chairman Mr Aaron in November
▶ 1:25:28uh your co-witness Mr taibi went on Chris Cuomo's show and said one of his great concerns was quote there's going to be an enormous Temptation within the Trump government to do things like going after media organizations they don't like and they can't do that if they end up doing that it's going to be a disaster as the arrived I believe we're witnessing it right now it's it's underway and speeding up what what are what's the evidence of that well we we talked already
▶ 1:25:59about the problems at the FCC I think what we're seeing is incredibly powerful government officials using their power and their Pulpit to go directly after news organizations uh president Trump called for 60 minutes to be quote terminated uh Mr musk has gone after individual reporters who are trying to cover uh what doge is doing we don't know what doge is doing there's very little uh public information available and yet reporters who dare to actually ask who are these people what are they doing
▶ 1:26:29why do they have access to our most uh important personal information uh when that happens Here Comes Mr musk a government employee but also the head of a social media company coming after individual reporters those are some of the things that I'm incredibly concerned about and there are many others who are saying they're going to come after journalists including the nominee to head the FBI I think all four Witnesses have spoken about the dangers of State censorship but also the dangers of big Tech censorship
▶ 1:26:59with Elon Musk now appointed a special government employee although he's not filled out his ethics forms or uh gotten a conflict of interest waiver I hope Mr chairman will get a chance to work on that but do we believe now that the dangers of State censorship have merged with the danger dangers of big Tech censorship I'm obviously very concerned because it's one thing for the government to express its viewpoints and say we wish you would do this or you we wish you would do that
▶ 1:27:29it's quite another for this kind of merger and full-on collusion happening you know we were worried about the government this committee was very worried about the government in the previous administration putting pressure on Twitter now we have the head of X working inside the government to actually take apart government computer systems that would seem to rise to a higher level of concern right before people were worried because uh some nameless faceless bureaucrat would write a memo saying there's election disinformation it
▶ 1:27:59needs to be corrected and they thought that that was a First Amendment violation although the courts ended up rejecting that but in any event they didn't like the government even warning of a factual disinformation being warned of online now what we've got is the head of X the owner of X who controls all of that speech being part of the government itself and yet a lot of people aren't uttering a peep about about that why is it well I I have to ask in some cases where are they getting their news are they
▶ 1:28:29hearing about it I I have questions about that but I think people are outraged I I see people every day here in Washington with signs saying why is Elon musk's hands on my data I talk to my C you know I I I know there's millions of people in America outrage I'm talking about my colleagues who couldn't stop talking about a handful of memos that were written to the social media about factual disinformation they were upset about that now we've got an absolute merger of the social media state with the traditional governmental apparatus look I'm not sure
▶ 1:29:00I understand what my colleagues position is on whether there should be free speech on social media sites or not for several years they campaigned to get sites like X and Facebook to remove fact checking on their sites it sounded like what they were saying is we want a radical open free market and speech no censorship for anything racism sexism anti-Semitism fraudulent speech whatever um not because they endorsed that speech but because what they were saying was we just want a radically open free market
▶ 1:29:30but then Elon Musk takes over X he kicks off journalists who are critical of him or Donald Trump he kicks off uh Texas Observer journalist uh Steven monachelli uh Ken clipston of The Intercept podcaster Rob Russo Pro Progressive political groups he doesn't like um and so now X is flooded with all of the racist anti-semitic filth the misogyny all kinds of studies about how it's dramatically through
▶ 1:30:00the roof and yet he's getting rid of political speech he disagrees with and my colleagues have nothing to say about that is that the right approach to free speech if you think free speech is at stake on the social media uh absolutely not Congressman I mean as we' talked about repeatedly in this hearing we need free speech for everyone we need to protect free expression and so if Elon Musk is doing something this committee should be as concerned about it if Elon Musk and Donald Trump are colluding to pressure media companies they should be just as concerned I
▶ 1:30:30would argue more concerned given the evidence than they than they have been in the many hearings covered here about low-level employees concentrating low-level staffers Mr taiii uh tweeted to Elon Musk he said Elon I've repeatedly declined to criticize you and have nothing to do with your beefless substack is there a reason why I'm being put in the middle of things he said am I being Shadow banned his answer from Elon Musk was you are dead to me please get off Twitter and just stay on substack I yield back to you Mr chairman gentleman yields back gentleman
▶ 1:31:00from California is recognized thank you Mr chairman um you know the Democrats complain that Mr musk is an unelected bureaucrat well I'd remind them that every bureaucrat is unelected that's why the elected president is solely vested with the executive powers of the federal government there is no bureaucrat that's independent of the president that would mean that there independent of the people which is the very definition of a tyranny Mr musk is accountable to the president
▶ 1:31:31who in turn has been accountable to the people the threat that we face is unelected bureaucrats who are working contrary to the will of the people as expressed through the presidential election it seems to me that the Beating Heart of a democracy is our freedom of speech you know that's how a free Society sorts truth from lies and right from wrong and wisdom from Folly Americans have always believed that the way to do that is put the two of them side
▶ 1:32:01by side and Trust the American people to tell the difference and they've done a good job of that in 250 years it's clear to me that in the last four years the Democrats attempted to install themselves rather than the American people as the Arbiters of what is true and right and and wise and what we saw was the power of God government focused on muzzling their opposition and preventing the Democracy from working I'm particularly concerned about the coordinated
▶ 1:32:31suppression of the story of the hunter Biden laptop because of post-election polling in which respondents said that they if they'd seen that information during the election it would have changed their vote and in numbers it would have changed the outcome of the presidential election that that's election interference on a historic scale and about as clear a threat to democracy As It Gets but I I remember a story of a a retiring law professor who said that for many years he he'd begin his course on the first amendment
▶ 1:33:02by telling the joke of an American and a Soviet talking about freedom of speech in their countries the Americans said well we have the right to say whatever we want about our government officials and the Soviet replied well so do we except the officials don't let us lie about them he said that always got a big laugh in his classrooms into until the last few years yeah good point and and and and that's what I I I find very uh shocking about what has has has occurred in our society
▶ 1:33:32you know I agree with the Democrats that we need to be just as Vigilant in defending speech we disagree with of of that's absolutely true it was something that they were unwilling to do themselves during the last four years that they held power now Mr tabe you've talked about this before I've often said we must never allow the left to become our teachers but you saw this trans position firsthand and you've spoken out about the importance of of freedom of speech on all sides would you care to
▶ 1:34:05elaborate I'm sorry I'm I'm a little thank you for the question Mr Congressman um this uh sudden uh adopting of the free speech for religion uh is a little jarring uh where obviously you're very concerned about things that Elon Musk um may be doing or Donald Trump may be doing U but where was that concern when White House officials were pressuring Twitter to remove New York Times Reporter Alex baronson who was ultimately taken down for saying an absolutely true
▶ 1:34:35statement which was that the vaccine does not prevent infection or transmission that Cas is still going through the courts where was that concern when um uh the New York Post was locked out of its own account for two weeks uh for an absolutely true story about Hunter Biden's laptop it seems two of the most consequential issues uh that that affect the lives of every American are the debates over climate change and the debate over covid and how to respond to it and and
▶ 1:35:05yet the government worked overtime to suppress of a a contrary opinions um Mr shellenberger uh you mentioned that that one thing we need to do is defund the institutions that are suppressing speech and I couldn't agree more uh let me ask you what else should we be doing right now What legislation should we be pursuing to enshrine the First Amendment freedoms the the the left waged war against these years well thank you for asking Congressman I mean I think it's really we don't have accountability yet we
▶ 1:35:35don't have the files we don't even we don't know what really happened we have some of the files of what's occurred but just on the hunter Biden laptop case you had a sophisticated influence operation being operated by the FBI through the Aspen Institute to pre-b which is code for brainwash journalists and the social media sensors in advance of the story coming out I mean that is next level kind of manipulation going on by illegal by the FBI we don't have any of the files on that but I think the big the most pressing threat right now is from Europe
▶ 1:36:06uh the censorship industrial complex is sort of retreating into Europe they want to you know weaponize their Digital Services act I don't as a taxpayer as an American that's whose life and my family's life is on the line to protect Europe I don't know what I'm doing if I'm trying to defend a continent that wants to suppress freedom of speech for their own people and for the entire planet my time's expired I'd be very interested in the thoughts of all of our panelists on what additional actions the government can take you're saying defund them and get to the bottom of it I couldn't agree more
▶ 1:36:36uh then what thank you gentleman yields back the chair recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee thank you Mr chair I appreciate all the witnesses the outstanding testimony the lady from Canada I want to welcome you you're a first witness from the 51st state um this this hearing is interesting because breaking news Joe Biden lost the election he not going to run ever again but this committee's hearing
▶ 1:37:06and I mean some good can come out of looking about what happened and some of the things weren't proper but Joe Biden's gone we need to be looking at what's happening right now and what's right happening right now is we have a constitutional crisis this is the Judiciary Committee where the Constitution should not be something we think of as something we study in school but something we defend and protect against all enemies foreign and domestic and right now it is being attacked the rule of laws I think
▶ 1:37:36U Miss uh sub I think they quoted you and said something about special uh uh um something about our core what what's at stake is our core values and what's at stake is our core Val values the rule of law and this committee is doing nothing about it we should be concerned about the rule of law concerned about Constitution concerned about the truth and we're not doing that and we have a great problem
▶ 1:38:07the American people thought that they were going to elect a government that was going to get involved with inflation reduce the price of eggs make their daily lives better in the war in Ukraine on day one none of that's happened instead we've gone off on all this stuff and we've got a guy we call a special government uh employee which sounds too much like a special military operation and and it's kind of a scary term but that's what we've got they talk about waste Fraud and Abuse they say it all the time
▶ 1:38:38but they don't show us the waste Fraud and Abuse they just say they've discovered it and they're finding it and whatever all this well I think it's just their policy differences particularly at us Aid not necessarily waste Fraud and Abuse and and and Mr taibe I think you said that they can't do it surgically if if Mr musk is such a genius and he's damn smart boy uh X is a smart boy too they were the two Smart Ones in the room the other day but uh you do it surgically you don't do it with a sledgehammer
▶ 1:39:09um he's doing it with a sledgehammer and a gorilla can do it with a sledgehammer a genius has to be Surgical and you could save usaid's programs that are humanitarian purposes and medical purposes and providing food work against hunger and and and all kind of problems which you see in Africa with HIV AIDS and pepar you can keep those programs which is the abundance and majority of of usaid instead we're them um Elon
▶ 1:39:39Musk took over Twitter and I can tell you I'm been a Twitter user I got more anti-semitic comments on Twitter since he took over by far had some when he before he took over but just a small amount now almost every time I post anything on Twitter I'm going to get something about Jew go back to Israel we don't need your type Cohen oh yes Cohen I'm sick of that and musk allows it go to Blue Sky um he's ruin Twitter he went
▶ 1:40:10through that with the same tactics he's going through the US government the fork in the road getting rid of people and firing so many people Twitter has been ruined uh it was a a Marketplace for ideas and no longer is it's a mouthpiece for the extreme right and for musk um musk has has not shown him to be able to understand the government and speak truth when we had continuing resolution of last December mus said the bill allocated five three billion dollar to
▶ 1:40:40build a new football stadium in Washington it didn't allocate any money for a football stadium and he said it emphatically $3 billion he said it was going to be a 40% salary increase for congress people no it said there' be a cost of living adjustment of 3% on usaid he reposted as to Donald Jr a post that was eventually found out to come out from a Russian operative that said that Ukraine paid $20 million for celebrities like Angelina jol
▶ 1:41:10Sean Penn Ben Stiller to come to Ukraine false they didn't pay anything for them and they've said that we spent must said 50 million Trump $100 million on condoms in Gaza for Hamas and that's not true there was 7 million is all usid spends all over and that's for helping on HIV AIDS and the Gaza they spent some money on was Gaza in mosambique I mean they can get on a map and see the Gulf of America but they can't find out what's going on in Africa and
▶ 1:41:41that's going to be the largest growing continent in our in in the world um I'm just concerned about the truth I'm concerned about musk I'm concerned about Doge I'm concerned about this employee who they wanted to bring back and I think they did who said just for the record I was racist before it was cool you could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity we want to normalize Indian hate and that's not Tanto that's an entire country and I would not mind at all if Gaza and Israel were both wiped off the face of
▶ 1:42:11the Earth that's a real nice character and that's who they took up as their as their champion thank you sir and I beeld back the balance gentl back gentlemen from Wisconsin's recognize thank you Mr chairman um at the end of your testimony Mr taibe it says no wonder your approval ratings are lower than psoriasis by the way I've had a few bouts of it it's nasty stuff and uh and you said you sold us out explain what you were saying at the end of your testimony many of the programs
▶ 1:42:41thank you for the the question Mr Congressman uh many of the programs that Michael and I reported on uh in the Twitter files um these are taxpayer funded uh programs that are being spent uh to remove the speech of the taxpayers themselves or to encourage platforms to take down content of the taxpayers and I I think uh most people would disagree with that allocation of resources I'm hearing a lot about Elon Musk um does that mean that
▶ 1:43:11I should be in favor of the Department of Homeland Security partnering with Stanford University to do a mass flagging program ahead of the 2020 election where uh the speech of ordinary citizens was take down taken down uh these are two completely separate issues but the it's the institutional problem uh We've created all these institutions the global engagement Center is one counter misinformation program the FBI's foreign influence task force the cyber security infrastructure Security Agency these
▶ 1:43:41are all big institutions that are part of the government that are uh directed towards this exact activity and it has to be shut down uh in order for us to get back to an absolutely free press environment uh on March 9th 2023 I believe you were in this building testifying and the IRS uh knocked on your door give us a retrospective if you could do it uh kind of briefly I got other questions here um give me a retrospective as you look back on that incident two years ago
▶ 1:44:12yeah I came back from testifying before this committee um on the train my wife told me that the IR the IRS had left a note on my door uh they had knocked while I was testifying this again is why I'm finding it funny that people are suddenly concerned about the harassment of journalists I don't remember any of you saying anything when this happened at the time you think it's a coincidence we subsequently learned thanks to Mr chairman Jordan uh who reached out to the treasury that that case was opened on me on December 24th 20 2022
▶ 1:44:42when probably the most consequential Twitter files report that I dropped uh was published it was a Saturday and it was Christmas Eve I don't think the IRS is usually working that day Mr sub Mana uh in regards to section 230 of the communications decency act um might it be useful if the liability Shield that is currently in place be conditioned on companies to make sure that they adhere to a free speech standard do you think there maybe should be changes
▶ 1:45:13made to section 230 to make sure that free speech is protected um I'm not familiar with this legislation what is the liability Shield um Mr shellenberger would you like to take that question sure and I've testified in front of the Senate and written a white paper on this issue I think that section 230 should be reformed if you're going to offer this sweeping liability protection then I think that you adult users of social media platforms should be able to choose and filter their own legal content um and
▶ 1:45:43I've said that publicly quite a bit before I haven't found a lot of interest on either in either party for that proposal but I do think that's the best way certainly you can still have a feed that the social Med platforms choose to feed you but I do think there should be that option for people to choose their own content you say in your testimony um scop tactics being used by the US and UK military against the American people that is really scary stuff reading that could you elaborate because I think the American people need to hear I mean they need to hear about
▶ 1:46:13this yeah I mean we now know what happened which is that basically after the war on terror the United States um used counterterrorism counter Insurgency counter populism tactics first in the Middle East as part of the Arab Spring uprisings then in the Eastern Europe as part of the color revolutions using social media to foment revolutions against uh places that we wanted regime change and then using censorship in places to repress conflicting opinion and places that we were trying to stabilize those tactics were then turned against the American people
▶ 1:46:43after the populist Revolutions of 2016 first you saw Russia gate uh the idea this wild conspiracy theory that President Trump was somehow controlled through a sex blackmail operation by the Russians uh but then we also saw a manipul you know a very elaborate effort to do exactly what they had done abroad creating uh small Committees of experts to decide what the truth was and demand censorship on the basis of it but I also mentioned there's also these proactive influence operations the most dramatic of which is the Hun Biden laptop
▶ 1:47:14severely illegal but we also saw you the mobilization of the intelligence community and now in the latest study article that we published today we have documented that the agency for International Development has overseen basically a takeover over the last decade and a half of independent investigative journalism in Europe and around the world through occrp and supposedly independent journalism organizations with an eye to basically controlling the information and controlling the major news media that do investigative journalism
▶ 1:47:44thank you Mr chairman and Mr chairman thank you so much for the work that you have done over the last couple congresses on this issue we appreciate it genten yeld back I think gentl the gentle lady from California's Rec uh thank you Mr chairman you know Donald Trump is a litigious individual um he's quick to sue news organizations that try and hold him to account but he's also the commander-in-chief who appears to be using every weapon in the federal government's Arsenal to go after those
▶ 1:48:15same news organizations he is currently suing uh in his private capacity CBS for $20 but at the same time uh he his FCC chairman Brendan Carr is investigating CBS while Mr Trump president Trump is calling on him to go even further and to revoke cbs's license because he didn't like the coverage that they gave he's doing all this while paramont cbs's parent company
▶ 1:48:45is in Murder talks with a billionaire trump super donor David Ellison so Mr Aaron can you you help us understand how these actions by President Trump and his administration might send a chilling message to news organizations yes I mean I think the message the administration is uh sending is pay up and get in line I mean they've repeatedly you know president Trump is a private citizen filed these lawsuits but president
▶ 1:49:15Trump is no longer a private citizen he's sitting in the Oval Office uh using the power of that office and of his appointees to go after the same companies he's filed lawsuits against uh that that's outrageous and on terms that are almost Unthinkable we're talking about editing a video we're talking about asking some factchecking questions we're talking about you know unbelievably normal operations of news organizations reporting on the activity of law enforcement all First
▶ 1:49:45Amendment protected things that these news organizations are doing and yet under the Trump Administration the message is if you're not in line if you're not singing from our Himel we're going to come after you with the force of the government and that's what we should be concerned about that's where it crosses over from the concerns of an individual saying I didn't like what you did to actual uh censorship and government power being abused well it's it's not just what you've said in December ABC agreed to settle a $16
▶ 1:50:15million uh lawsuit by Mr Trump and his foundations and then just last month made a um paid 25 million to settle what honestly as a lawyer seemed to me a pretty ridiculous fouryear old lawsuit just last July uh Mr Trump threatened to throw Mark Zuckerberg in jail and then after he won Zuckerberg went down to maral Lago had dinner with him uh well where Mr Trump told him he could be brought
▶ 1:50:45into the tent and then of course Zuckerberg and made a uh settled the lawsuit brought against them for four four years ago made a settle for 25 million that's on top of the 2 million made it and Zuckerberg contributed to the inauguration does it looks like these companies are agreeing to make these payments to Donald Trump in kind of a payto playay measure what do you think Mr Aaron I agree with your analysis congresswoman it looks like they're
▶ 1:51:16getting they're making payoffs these were not cases uh you know the lawyers that looked at them the law professors that looked at them when they were filed said these are completely specious these are these are outlandish these are not actually viable cases and yet now that Mr Trump is in office suddenly these media companies are lining up writing checks for tens of millions of dollars to a sitting president either to say please you know take the Target off their back or to seek major regulatory favors like
▶ 1:51:46a mega merger I I I don't support a mega merger but the idea that the cost of getting that merger done is altering your editorial content or having to respond to have your other business interests challenged your licenses taken away uh it's it's it's it's unbelievable it's it's outrageous well I agree with you Mr Aaron I'm not sure whether uh the president is shaking down these corporations or whether they're offering him bribes because they realize that if they pay the right price they'll
▶ 1:52:16get their way but it's clear to me that there is these outrageous settlement payments to the president and his foundation ations are really I think incompatible with a free press can you explain Mr Aaron what happens to a free and fair uh press to journalism when media organizations and the president are engaged in this type of pay to playay is this something that other media organizations are going to pay attention to what's the impact in the Ecco structure well I do think there's a danger that they follow follow each follow
▶ 1:52:46each other's leads uh right what we would like to see in this case is these media companies actually standing up for their rights actually fighting these cases in court but they've made I would say very unfortunately business decisions that they've decided the cost of settling because it's ad advantageous to other parts of their business is is better than actually defending the first amendment in free speech I think that's a huge problem because they are signaling to this Administration hey if if you don't like something you see and you file a lawsuit
▶ 1:53:16you're you're probably going to get paid or they're saying well we don't want to go anywhere near that uh because we might face one of these outlandish lawsuits my time is expired Mr chairman I yield back gentle yields back gentleman from Kentucky is recognized thank you Mr chairman Mr shellenberger last Congress you helped expose censorship grants at the National Science Foundation specifically known as track F grants can you tell us more about those censorship activities conducted associated with these grants yeah this was the
▶ 1:53:46National Science foundations track F was basically to create censorship tools that would become sort of the middleware uh to you know such as you know newsguard for example is the most famous of which or the global disinformation index the idea is to essentially impose on people's uh systems either directly through their computers or adopted by social media companies a set of tools that would allow centralized authorities to decide what the truth was and filter it for people it's an horrifying program all of track F in my view should be eliminated
▶ 1:54:17and I think there should be an investigation to figure out what in the world were they thinking when they created a program to basically have the taxpayers subsidize the creation of elaborate censorship tools that included the use of AI in creating that sensorship so taxpayers are actually paying to for the government to help private companies censor their free speech yeah and then the idea was that they were just going to you know give these tools to Facebook and x and others to use or to give them to Microsoft and others to use uh it's awful
▶ 1:54:47stuff and by the way it also came from Department of Defense so many of that much of those NSF are are sort of recycling um older DARPA DOD projects you know when I coached t-ball the kids shared helmets and so occasionally there would be an outbreak of lice and we'd Comfort the parents by saying it's not it's not a sin to get lice it's a sin to keep lice so with these track F grants uh later today I plan to reintroduce my bill to eliminate
▶ 1:55:17those and I want to make a plea to the White House and anybody in the executive branch who's listening or anybody at Doge you need to go after these track F grants and defund anything that's says Miss dis or mal information those are all in my opinion orwellian terms also we have an Omnibus coming up in March where I'm scared to death we're going to refund all of these things we're basically going to feed the lice uh that we're contracted in
▶ 1:55:47the last Administration but this isn't just limited to NSF grants uh the cyber security and infrastructure Security Agency sisa uh within DHS is a flagrant violator of free speech it had things like election Integrity uh partnership Mr taii can you can you tell us anything about this what's gone on at DHS or sisa yeah so sisa um was the
▶ 1:56:18uh as we've found in the uh Twitter files uh the election inte partnership was um run by Stanford uh they had four Partners including the center for for an informed public uh University of Washington Graphica the Atlantic council's digital forensic research Labs uh but they partnered with sisa uh and the global engagement Center at the state department and we found in the Twitter files um and also uh chairman Jordan also found
▶ 1:56:48um some um emails s basically saying that this EIP project was founded at the behest of DHS uh so uh this essentially EIP was a sisa created project or was a sisa um sort of sponsored project and uh it was you know it's it's essentially a a moderation uh removal uh operation that was sponsored by the American
▶ 1:57:19taxpayer another example of American taxpayers unwittingly knowing well unwittingly without knowing funding their own violation or deprivation of their first amendment rights Mr shellenberger can you explain how you traced usaid funding that served as the basis for whistleblower report in 2019 which led to the impeachment of President Trump sure well you may remember that the uh the so-called whistleblower was in the White House was actually a
▶ 1:57:49CIA analyst and in that whistle blowers complaint which led to the impeachment one of the central pieces of evidence was created by a usaid funded and controlled organization called the occrp and we have another piece out today about how it participated in the Russia gate hoax as well creating uh essentially very important information leading to that so I mean you have in usaid a much larger fund of money and a much broader strategy for information control that included censorship but also
▶ 1:58:20as I mentioned taking control of investigative drug journalism um really worldwide I mean its Ambitions were you know amazing so yeah I mean that's a that's an agency when when we saw that get shut down by Doge I thought that was completely appropriate if there's something in there that it was doing that's valuable then you could refund it later but my view same thing with sisa death penalty for organizations that participated in violations of the First Amendment like sisa cyber security is an extremely important function it shouldn't be contaminated and and undermined by censorship
▶ 1:58:50activities I think it's always been known that our government has funded the change in administrations if we can say it politely of other governments but isn't it borderline treason when the taxpayer is when organizations entrusted with protecting our country are now undermining our own government absolutely I mean if you're trying to do regime change illegal if you're weaponizing DHS FBI uh sisa that's that's treasonous regime change activities redirected you know that you developed
▶ 1:59:20abroad that we developed abroad for regime change directed against the American people and the and our Representatives I mean it's shocking and we still haven't dealt with it as a country Mr chairman I see my time is expired I'd like to introduce into the record or ask unanimous consent to introduce into the record an article in Newsmax shellenberger usaid paid for Trump impeachment effort dated uh February 6 2025 without objection J's back the gentleman from George is recognized thank you Mr chairman Mr ranking
▶ 1:59:50member today's hearing entitled censorship industrial complex uh it it's puzzling to me that when we're talking about censorship and denial of First Amendment rights um we're talking uh the uh Witnesses here from the majority seemed to be stuck on Hunter Biden's laptop mentioning it repeatedly uh but nothing uttered about what
▶ 2:00:20has been transpiring since January 20th when this president was inaugurated you know Free Speech necessarily means freedom of the press and uh co-president Trump has been talking for years about uh the Press being the enemy of the people Mr Aaron what impact has the president repeatedly calling the press the enemy of the people had
▶ 2:00:51on our Free Speech well I think it's very chilling I think it's a big problem when the most powerful person in the country who is tasked with upholding the Constitution and the First Amendment repeatedly goes out of his way to threaten journalists for asking uh hard questions to sue news organizations because he simply doesn't like their conclusions I think this is a real overreach uh in his power and it creates danger for journalists
▶ 2:01:21out there actually trying to report on this Administration as I assume is intended to do and he's been doing more than simply attacking journalists he's also been threatening confidential sources of journalist how does that chill Free Speech well I I do worry about any Administration and uh you know i' I've worked with uh folks on on this side of the Das over problems of the government uh trying to go after whistleblowers uh trying to uh for
▶ 2:01:52reporters to hand over their sources uh you know there there were new regulations put into place during the Biden Administration that you know I hope offer some greater levels of protection uh I don't know if those are going to survive the new Administration I know members of this commit committee have supported the Press act have supported important protections for journalists we need those because at A Moment Like This we are relyant on whistleblowers to know what's happening and we're also reliant on inspectors General who are
▶ 2:02:22essential for an ethical and transparent government yet during first uh during his first week in office uh co-president Trump illegally fired 17 inspectors generals over 18 different federal agencies and just yesterday he fired the 18th uh Inspector General uh a day after that Inspector General um from usaid uh released a report detailing the wasteful
▶ 2:02:53impacts of uh Trump's chaotic and illegal funding Freeze and stop work order the message was clear that if you speak out you will be fired uh co-presidents musk and Trump clearly want to shroud their administration's actions from public scrutiny while they illegally freeze federal funds Purge federal workers and rumage and rumage through sensitive private data that they can use to retaliate against
▶ 2:03:23any critics who dare to speak up I'm concerned about the firing of the Watchdogs who dare to speak up just this past week uh you know this uh Inspector General fired for revealing more than $489 million in food assistance that was at risk of spoilage or potential diversion after the Trump Administration implemented its Aid Freeze and stop work order the very next day he
▶ 2:03:53was fired as I said uh do you agree that it chills freedom of speech and independent oversight when inspectors General are fired literally the day after they release a critical report and what message do you think that it sends to other whistleblowers who might come forward well it's it sends a message to whistleblowers that uh nobody may be there to listen to you or protect you I think the Inspector General system is incredibly important uh at exposing government
▶ 2:04:23wrongdoing no matter who's in power these are supposed to be independent people uh it's my understanding that moves against them are supposed to come before Congress Congress is supposed to be informed uh before it happens that that hasn't happened here so the whole sale of removal of Inspector generals at a time when there's so much confusion and Chaos about what's happening I think is very very dangerous and I hope that this committee and and and others with jurisdiction here in Congress will be look very carefully at these decisions I know the courts are starting
▶ 2:04:54to get involved but if we don't have these independent Watchdogs we won't know what's happening in many cases the Press won't know what's happening because they're relying on the kind of information that An Inspector General can get that nobody else has access to uh on the outside well I tell you I know that if uh inspectors General had been uh terminated by uh a Democrat and this committee as it is now uh was under the control of Republican these Republicans would be through
▶ 2:05:24the roof about it they would be they would not allow it to happen but it is troubling that they are so transactional now that they don't believe in the Constitution they just simply will follow whoever sit sitting in that seat who can accomplish their political objectives and then to hell with the Constitution with that I yield back gentleman yields back Mr tab do you have any idea how many people work at the United States Department of treasury oh I don't I'm sorry
▶ 2:05:5510837 and part of the Department of Treasury of course is the Internal Revenue Service is that right yes it is yeah big part frankly big part thousands of people work there too and on December 24th 2022 one of those 10837 employees at the Department of Treasury decided they were going to start an investigation into you is that right yes that's my understanding and that just happened to coincide with the day you did one of the Twitter files I think one of the important ones I think maybe in the second one if I second or third but one of those important Twitter files is that right yes it was it was and then a few months later you're sitting in that same
▶ 2:06:25seat testifying in front of this committee and the Very time you're testifying another one of 10,376 people knock on your door unannounced visit to your home which by the way they've discontinued because of this issue and a bunch of other crazy things they were doing is that right that's right Mr chairman just for the record uh they actually owed you money right you didn't do anything wrong is that is that they did they owed me quite a lot of money yeah okay I just want to make that C but obviously a way to intimidate someone who is focusing on this
▶ 2:06:55issue we're discussing today right now we just got we just got an order from a judge the judge in the southern district of New York said that no political appointment appointees or special government employees can have access to information 10 18,37 people can have access to information but the people the president of the United States selects the guy who's elected by 77 million people he can't preliminary enjoining the a preliminary injunction against the defendants during bring the pendency of this from granting any political appointees special government employees from any access
▶ 2:07:25to that information I just I don't know about you Mr selberg I find that kind of troubling 108,000 people can do it at least one of them Christmas Eve we got a federal government employees working hard on Christmas Eve probably remotely working going after Mr tabe but the president United States can't have people go in and look and see if we can save some money for the taxpayers he can't do that according to this judge think that makes sense Mr shellberg doesn't I mean my understanding is that the president controls the executive branch and the executive BR article
▶ 2:07:56two section one very first sentence executive power shall be vested in the president not the in a president of the United States of America first sentence y yeah but this judge says no no no we got to trust the this is the fundamental issue do you trust the unelected bureaucrats I think it was Mr Tiffany and Mr mlto or do you trust the guy who was elected by the people and that's that that's where I would rather put our trust in the people who they put in office to do these kind of thing now you mentioned earlier Mr I'm going to jump around here and try to get to all of you uh
▶ 2:08:26Mr shellenberger you mentioned that usaid which has been in the news of late spending uh taxpayer money and all kinds of stupid things is also involved in the censorship effort I want you to just elaborate on that a little bit because this is going on as we speak I want you to elaborate on that for the committee if you would yeah I mean I think it's important to understand that usid viewed this very holistically and it's important if you look at the hunb and laptop case which is an extremely important case to understand because the FBI was weaponized then I weaponized the Aspen Institute to brainwash
▶ 2:08:56the entire media it wasn't just that they censored it it was that they changed the perception of the laptop they they they they created the perception that it was something other than what it obviously was and that's what these guys are trying to do these are called information operations and usaid has been in the process of taking over so-called independent investigative journalism around the world and at the same time then training NOS how to demand censorship for example Mr Aaron's organization has been working to train organizations to so-called flag
▶ 2:09:26misinformation behind the scenes by the way it's one thing to criticize somebody publicly which we should all be engaged in but this thing where you're skullking around secretly yeah that's what that's what open democracy is this thing of going out and like secretly flagging information behind the scenes and demanding censorship that is such a that's completely an Abomination that is not what clear you you're saying usaid your investigation is now engaged in this Pre-K kind of concept and and and process that
▶ 2:09:56they did with the laptop story in the fall of 2020 and it's the exact same approach as well where often what they're doing uh for example with usaid occrp is that they're they're leaking intelligence from the intelligence agencies um in a very and not like Wikileaks where they just dumped it I think probably too much without the proper redactions but they're strategically leaking it and then manipulating places like the guardian and the New York Times to to publish certain stories and control the whole investigative news process and we saw this from from
▶ 2:10:26Yol Roth's testimony he testified during these weekly meetings that they communic federal law enforcement communicated to us there was going to be hack and leak operations before the presidential election likely in in October we had these repeat so that what's going to happen when it's going to happen and then they said here who it's going to involve that the were rumors that the hack leak operation would involve Hunter Biden so they set them all up and then they set them all up because they had the laptop and they knew what was coming and when it
▶ 2:10:57happens everyone buys into what the 51 former Intel official say that's right Mr Superman I want to give you the last word RFK I just want you know I appreciate the historical perspective you brought when you testified last Congress but one of the statements that stuck with this last Congress was actually a statement made by RFK Jr when he said when you look at history it is never the good guys who are for censorship and that's what we're trying to keep in mind and stop it from both sides from all sides we just don't we want the First Amendment I'll give you the last 30 seconds here to um absolutely I mean as as
▶ 2:11:27you mentioned earlier uh and when I was here the last time I think it was a throwaway comment to a representative it was was not even part of my testimony I don't think so and I said uh the values of Western Civilization are worth fighting for going back to the Enlightenment and the Reformation that is what gave us free speech that's what distinguishes us from the rest of the world and the first amendment in America distinguishes America from the rest of the world um
▶ 2:11:57I come from India originally I live in Canada I'm from Canada but I've lived in India I've lived in the Middle East I've lived in places where just speaking your mind can send you to prison um you cannot criticize anything that goes against the government or certain religions for that matter and when I came to the West it was you know refreshing to finally be able to express myself and unfortunately and unfortunately what I left behind
▶ 2:12:27has come to me in Canada has followed me to Canada and I'm seeing that happening in the United States and it's very boring because it's happened so quickly and I don't know where this is going to lead us to yeah if if we can't settle our disputes with debate the alternative is frightening and we never want to get there so I appreciate all of you I appreciate from both sides I mean we we we want to embrace the first subit unfortunat I have to run Mr Rask and I have to run to the house administration committee to talk about the budget for this committee um and if you need I should have said this outset if any of you need a
▶ 2:12:57break or we'll take it just let us know just communicate with one of our staffers and we'll give you a break if not we're going to keep going and I think it is the gentleman from California recognized for five minutes for the last three years uh Donald Trump campaigned on lowering your costs do they feel lower does anything about this hearing get us to lower costs you were promised cheap eggs and today you're getting cheap shots and there's probably no better natural remedy for
▶ 2:13:28insomnia than a congressional hearing on anti- censorship but Mr taibe you're here and would you agree that censorship is a suppression of ideas words images and something that can be conducted by the government yeah it can also not be by the government but yes and you would then agree that it's censorship for government Democratic or authoritarian run by a democrat or a republican to Bar the Press from covering the government when the Press
▶ 2:13:58reports something the government doesn't like bar in what way take away their credentials take away their access so uh as a long time I I started my career as an independent journalist journalists who whine about not being credentialed um should recognize that being on the outside is part of what being in the Press is I'm not terribly sympathetic to people who complain about that issue so if you if you report something that that a government doesn't like and they take away access that others have that's not censorship you can still cover
▶ 2:14:28it that's not censorship okay and banning books is that censorship Banning books is is censorship y so this topic is more complicated than the hearing title would suggest and I would argue that difference between a democratic approach and Democratic activists on this issue and Republican is that as Democrats seek to attack Miss and disinformation it's because their perception of information
▶ 2:14:59is that it is a means to the truth and for many Republicans they believe that information is a means to power and so they are primarily concerned with using information whether it's disinformation or misinformation as long as it gets them to power they're okay with it and it's difficult to try and litigate what do you do with Miss and disinformation and I will be honest with you sometimes
▶ 2:15:29Democratic voices object too much to miss and disinformation a lawyer once told me when I was a young prosecutor that I was jumping out of my seat too much objecting to conduct by the defense attorney and while I was probably legally right it was just annoying the jury and that I should pick my battles so I get frustrated too sometimes when it feels like the penalty flag is being thrown too often however there is a difference between
▶ 2:16:00censoring somebody because you disagree with them I'll credit chairman Jordan he and I have had some spirited debates in this hearing room sometimes they've gotten quite personal by both of us and sometimes when I land a point he gets upset his staff gets upset but he takes it like a man and he'll make his point right back at me
▶ 2:16:30and I take it like a man you know who doesn't take it like a man Donald Trump because he's not a man he's a child he's a small child and he views censorship as a mean to get rid of people who disagree with him he wants to get rid of judges who disagree with him he said that as recently as yesterday speaker Johnson is backing him up by suggesting that judges should just pause
▶ 2:17:00in interpreting his violations of Constitution Trump goes after his perceived political opponents I know when I was a part of the Russia investigation he subp his doj subpoenaed my emails and my cell pH on records he's a petty punitive child and and I can recognize a toddler because I'm a parent of three of them and I recognize the same behavior and yes sensorship is occurring but it's
▶ 2:17:31self-censorship and it's by you all because I hear you in our private conversations when you agree that Trump is a child I hear the people you tell that Trump is a child whether it's lobbyists or reporters but you shrink in this room and you shrink in the chamber and you self censor yourselves from speaking out because you're afraid and he's laughing at you that you take him so seriously because he's unserious he's laughing
▶ 2:18:02that you think he is so powerful because he's weak he's laughing that you think he is so big because he's quite small so we need you we need your voices right now it can't just be this side we're all in to speak up and we need you to speak up too otherwise we are all out of freedom and I yield back gentlemen it's time has expired gentlemen yields back I'm going to recognize myself for the next five minutes Mr taii the Twitter fil
▶ 2:18:32showed how the state Department's Global engagement Center and I know you've done some reporting on this uh initially created to counter the foreign disinformation campaigns ended up censoring American speech directly and and by proxy um you know there was it was a St Lish in 2016 $61 million1 120 employees and what we found now through further reporting is that at the exit of the Biden Administration they
▶ 2:19:02kind of shifted things around to make sure that it was still still viable and still could operate can you just explain kind of in general what your reporting discovered and and what you've seen since then sure uh thank you Mr Congressman um the global engagement Center which was um an organization that was unknown to us when we started the Twitter files uh and it started off as a counterterrorist organization
▶ 2:19:33um a source that I spoke to that um had worked there described uh the transformation of their mission as CT to CP counterterrorism to counter populism uh we found Global engagement Center reports on a variety of topics within uh the Twitter files they also uh worked with the Stanford internet Observatory and the election Integrity partnership and at the end of this year they were uh set um to expire and be
▶ 2:20:03defunded but essentially what happened was they um they took the same amount of employees they renamed themselves uh r/ Fe and they scattered the employees physically throughout the building uh in different places uh to make it impossible or make it more difficult to uh eradicate the agency now I'm not sure how that has all uh panned out my understanding is that uh ultimately this will be defunded
▶ 2:20:33uh but that those personnel and that money still exists and they still have exactly the same uh Mission um that was delineated for them in 2018 by legislation and it was uh the way that they utilized what was called bad speech and good speech right can you describe how they kind of manipulated things that was presented to the American public and and a lot of this was initiated during covid right
▶ 2:21:03yes so the global engagement Center and they had a really important I think innovation in the in the whole evolution of uh the digital censorship movement they would they put out these reports some of them um were sort of old school intelligence reports where they actually use sources to identify uh accounts that were reasonably linked uh to foreign governments or foreign intelligence or might be Bots um but then they had this concept they called the information ecosystem and that just drew in accounts
▶ 2:21:34uh whose messages were too much in sync with those other accounts and as a result we had people who were completely innocent and in many cases were uh prominent politicians like there were prominent Democratic politicians in Italy for instance and in France uh who were de to be part of the Russian ecosystem or the Iranian ecosystem or the Chinese ecosystem this is just old school guilt by association and it was part of their method we found this repeatedly in their reports yeah the last question I had was so
▶ 2:22:04as as the B Administration leaves and they morph this group into another kind of different size organization I mean the fact of the matter is I mean this is a perfect Target for what doge is looking at right now because there's no way to really reform these organizations uh especially because it's part of the state department so it would be something that secretary secretary Rubio would absolutely have to go in and either rework start to finish or just eliminate it
▶ 2:22:35is is that correct I I would think so and again the the the process of scattering the organization throughout the building and the this is a a prime example of how how it's so difficult to eradicate these institutions once they they take hold yeah Mr shellenberger I'll just ask you kind of the final question and that was just you talked earlier about uh these types of organizations that are embedded and then how do you eliminate them how do you change them I mean you really have I mean my view is that you have to shut them down
▶ 2:23:05and reconstitute them with different rules different leadership personnel's policy so I mean you can't have somebody heading up sisa that thinks it's their job to to go around and to censor their fellow Americans you've got to have somebody there that's really committed to cyber security which is which is in their name twice that's how supposedly committed they are to it so any organization that has that level of mission drift I think uh you got to shut it down and reconstitute it later and I hope Congress considers doing that thank you very much my time has expired Mr
▶ 2:23:35chair I have a unanimous consent request uh c yeah Miss Crockett we have heard over and over today that the government was coercing social media companies to take down specific content mainly targeting conservatives you and I both know this this is not true because not one of the dozens of witnesses before Crockett what is the what's the UC request M the UC request for the record I would like to introduce excerpts from transcripts of interviews with Witnesses from the social media companies
▶ 2:24:05who this committee interviewed last Congress um they all testify that there was no direct you just need to put the document in point of order doesn't she just need to put the document in to the record M no I need to I don't believe that she needs to include any explanation Miss crackett go go ahead and and finish your UC request it's May 16th 2023 transcribed interview with a meta security policy employee who confirm that meta's hack and leak policy again point of order isn't it just the document
▶ 2:24:35that goes in isn't without objection without objection the second one is without object it will be it will be we don't need any further description of the document we have we have multiple without objection without objection so all of my transcripts are in objection I'll go to the gentleman from California who's recognized for 5 minutes thank you Mr chair the Trump Administration issued a series of executive orders that are bracingly illegal and unconstitutional and that's why federal
▶ 2:25:05judges appointed by Ronald Reagan George Bush and Donald Trump himself have halted a number of these orders and none of these orders are designed to lower inflation or lower your costs Donald Trump campaign pain on lowering prices he lied to you Congressional Republicans have also done nothing to lower prices and this hearing is a prime example this Republican control Judiciary Committee could hold a hearing on price gouging
▶ 2:25:35the Republicans could hold a hearing on antitrust and how monopolies are using their monopolistic power to raise your prices but no we're holding a hearing on Twitter and Facebook about Twitter and Facebook or you kidding me I'm going to show you a video now of what is at the top of Americans Minds which is inflation and grocery prices and specifically the high cost of eggs tonight shell shock with a price of eggs continuing to soar the
▶ 2:26:05average price for a dozen now more than $5 eer Coast to Coast also feeling the pinch and passing their cost increase to customers Waffle House diners now paying 50 cents more per egg a search charge a company says will be short lived we cannot predict how long the shortage will last what about you personally me um I'll just stop eating eggs here and since that NBC news report came out egg prices have increased again
▶ 2:26:36Fox News just recently reported the wholesale price of eggs is now an average of $8 and Donald Trump's indiscriminate tariffs that he's already leveled and threatened to leveled are making things worse I'm going to show you a video now of what Donald Trump's tariffs are doing to Shoppers at Costco Trump's
▶ 2:27:06Terra for has turned into an egg War at Costco everyone fighting for eggs at Costco I recently went grocery shopping and the price of eggs were between $7.99 and over $12 and not only with the prices that high but there were no eggs there no eggs on their shelves and that is leading the American people to realize that Donald Trump lied to them and Congressional Republicans are not focused on the issue that American people care about and that's why consumer sentiment has now
▶ 2:27:36dropped and that is a very important factor for the economy I'm going to show you a video about a recent consumer sentiment report this Michigan number all of them are pretty terrible University of Michigan sentiment Falls to 67.8 from 71.1 the uh current conditions index 687 from 74 and expectations 673 from 693 so people are not at this point seeing a lot of strength in the economy
▶ 2:28:06but they are seeing inflation this is really really interesting the Michigan one-year inflation number jumps to 4.3% that is a 1 percentage Point gain in one-year inflation expect ations over the January number 5 to 10 year inflation goes up just a tick to 3.3 from 3.2 but this these numbers we'll have to go under the hood and see exactly where people were upset but um the these numbers are not particularly
▶ 2:28:37good news for the fed or for the administration and just today it was announced that inflation increased again and it's not just on eggs it's also on meats and Petry and fish on gasoline fuel oil used cars and trucks prescription drugs car insurance and rent and Congressional Republicans are doing nothing to address this issue so look do I think it's obnoxious that Twitter bans
▶ 2:29:08the term cisgender you can be punished and suspended for using that term sure it's obnoxious but that's not what the American people care about they care about the number one issue which is inflation same thing last year same this year and Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans are doing nothing to address that issue in fact Trump's tariffs are making things worse so I urge our Congressional Republicans to get serious and stop doing dumb hearings I yield back gentleman yields back the gentleman from Texas is now recognized
▶ 2:29:38thank you uh Mr chairman it is so wild to me that when we talk about an issue um that so um so much indicts the B Administration for the laws they were breaking that the only thing Democrats can do is call it a dumb hearing talk about bird flu and say here's one that one of my colleagues said Joe Biden is gone and we need to be looking at what's happening right now they spent the last four years talking about Donald Trump after
▶ 2:30:08he left office and now that the American people got what they wanted which is another four years of Donald Trump they don't want to talk about Joe Biden you know I don't want to talk about Joe Biden either but I do want to acknowledge the lawfare the censorship which is the whole point of this hearing uh and you know I'll mention I'm glad that inflation was brought up uh because I do believe uh that we're going to finally head in a good direction but my uh my colleague from California just spent two minutes talking about eggs and the cost of eggs cost of eggs were up a
▶ 2:30:38month ago which is why the Biden Administration appropriated or spent $300 million on bird flu uh I'm not even going to blame Joe Biden for the cost of eggs or Donald Trump it we got a bird FL going on and yeah it's terrible but let me tell you something else that's terrible and that is what this committee uncovered that my colleagues from the left said wasn't a real thing and that is that big Tech platforms changed their content moderation policies because of pressure from the Biden Harris White House the Biden Harris
▶ 2:31:08White House's censorship campaign targeted true information satire and other content that did not violate the platform's policies no one on the other side of the aisle has indicated that they have a problem with that um they've complained about Elon Musk who is a private citizen who runs a private company perhaps not the way they want him to but they've not acknowledged that the Harris the Biden Harris White House was pressuring and instructing these companies to censor conservative speech
▶ 2:31:39or speech that they did not like uh I'll i' love to insert into the record I don't know if my colleague from Dallas County inserted this letter uh from meta's Facebook uh meta Zuckerberg on August 26th um but he spent two whole pages talking about all the things that he was pressured to do by the Biden White House and this was after Trump said I'm going to lock up anyone who interferes in this election uh my colleague from California mentioned that as if that was some terrible
▶ 2:32:09threat to make I'm going to defend the Integrity of the election well after Trump said that this letter came out as if Mr Zuckerberg was admitting which he did that they'd been breaking the law because the White House had asked them to Mr shellenberger I'll ask you to comment uh if you will I haven't heard any um outcry or condemnation from the left about all this um censorship from the Biden White House I want all this censorship to stop um but what am I missing here um you're you're not missing anything I mean this look
▶ 2:32:39the the whole censorship industrial complex was created by democrats I mean it's really quite disturbing and depressing when you think about it I mean I think I mean I was raised on the radical left and what we had in common with the liberal left was that we supported um the Brandenburg ruling we were supported skoi we Democrats were supposed to believe and supporting allowing like Nazis to March through neighborhoods of Holocaust Survivors that's what the Supreme Court has upheld that's how radical America's commitment to free speech is so when I hear members
▶ 2:33:09of Congress complaining that people said something racist online and they weren't censored I'm offended as an American by that I mean free speech is kind of we do a lot of things badly in the United States the one thing we do well and have done well for 250 years is protecting free speech so when you see an entire political party get behind weaponizing government to put their main political rival in prison create an elaborate censorship industrial complex run lawfare run information operations against their fellow Americans it's very disturbing and so I think that
▶ 2:33:39the fact that we're still talking about what happened we should be talking about what happened it was a woke reign of terror for the last 12 years where people were scared to stay their mind in public in private we had these elaborate governmental apparatuses in place to aggressively censor behind the scenes using law enforcement organizations to do it so I think that the fact that we're all still a little upset about that and that we're very concerned about what the Europeans are doing um I think should be a little bit more understandable for those of us that were were raised in
▶ 2:34:09the the true liberal Spirit of the left I appreciate that I yield back Mr chairman of the UN back Mr chairman unanimous unanimous consent to enter into the record the Supreme Court's opinion in merthy versus Missouri especially footnote 4 which states that the factual findings about alleged government censorship on social media quote appear to be clearly erous without objection without objection the uh gentoman from Washington is now recognized
▶ 2:34:39for five minutes thank you Mr chairman there are many issues in this committee's jurisdiction that are top of mind for the American people like the Constitutional crisis that we face when the vice president suggests that we don't need to listen to the judicial branch or when the administration takes repeated actions to undermine the article one powers of congress or how about if we use this hearing to take on the giant profiteering corporations that use monopolistic practices to raise
▶ 2:35:09prices and drive out competition remember when candidate Trump said that he was vowing to reduce prices on day one well here we are almost one month into the Trump presidency and not only have Republicans done absolutely nothing to lower prices but their policies are actually driving up prices as today's financial data showed but instead of dealing with that we're here wasting time on repeatedly debunked accusations of censorship
▶ 2:35:40even as the real censorship is happening right before our eyes Donald Trump's assault on Free Speech rights through a series series of executive orders that dictate terms of allowable expression and identities demand political loyalty from all civil servants and punish anyone who descents one of the executive orders requires federal government agencies to quote remove all statements policies regulations forms Communications or other internal
▶ 2:36:10and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology and to cease issuing such statements policies regulations fors Communications or other messages this executive order has now been used by the Centers for Disease Control and prevention to send out guidance prohibiting the use of terms like gender transgender pregnant person transsexual and non-binary Mr Aaron how does this lead to direct or
▶ 2:36:41indirect censorship of employees in their role as private citizens well I I think it's very concerning congresswoman the idea that in order to receive Government funding to do scientific research to provide Health Care to provide community services that you have to read from an approved list of words or if you use one of the words that's on the band list you could lose your entire funding you could have to fire your staff you could have to get rid of essential programs simply
▶ 2:37:11to push speaking of ideology and ideological agenda I think that's very very worrisome and so unnecessarily cruel on top of it transgender individuals constitute a small but important minority of the federal Workforce they serve in public health economic and national security positions alongside thousands of non-transgender co-workers what impact Mr Aaron AES censorship of transgender employees have on the broader Federal Workforce and its ability
▶ 2:37:41to serve the American people well it it forces government employees to essentially go into hiding uh to have to hide who they are and and what their identity is to feel that they're being watched by their colleagues to essentially ask their colleagues to erase erase their existence whether that's from government websites or from uh you know the ability to Simply meet with other people in the government who may may share their identity I think it's it's it's a massive overreach that's really an an attack
▶ 2:38:11on all of us you know it's attack on all of us another executive order directs the termination of all diversity equity and inclusion programs in the federal government as a result staff at the National Science Foundation have been combing through thousands of active science research projects alongside a list of keywords to determine whether or not those grants should be halted these keywords include words and phrases like activism equal
▶ 2:38:42underrepresented and get this one women women do these actions Mr Aaron constrain academic freedom or the ability of researchers to freely Express their views well it it seems to be an insane way to decide what our scientific researchers or other researchers should be studying the idea of cutting off funding via keyword as opposed to evaluating independent academic projects as opposed to evaluating you know is this a good cure for disease are we going to be able to
▶ 2:39:12research cancer and the idea that that could be styed or cut off because somebody used the wrong word incredibly chilling the NSF funds about 25% to basic academic research in the United States including critical research on medical devices quantum physics and artificial intelligence what effect does mass censorship of NSF funded research have on our ability as a country to advance scientific and technological development we the scientists need to be in charge
▶ 2:39:43of the science I think that's what it comes down to the idea that we are making decisions about what our research priority should be by inserting AI to look for keywords uh you know AI can barely handle your airline reservations and get it right or your searches online so I think the gentleman and I Y back uh gentleman from New Jersey is not recognized thank you Mr chair first of all it's humorous to me president Trump's been in for three weeks it's about three weeks right
▶ 2:40:13and you all are blaming him for the inflation engine that was created over the last four years come on seriously realistically come on but let me get to the real issue here and the real issue Mr chairman is the censorship that happened at so many levels of our government at so many levels of our institution in our media it penetrated every single level of our society let's just look at a little bit of what this committee did over the last few
▶ 2:40:44years look at social media the Biden White House colluded with Facebook to violence American citizens they censored satire they censored descent they censored facts they didn't like it was censorship and this committee exposed it and now even Mark Zuckerberg has to say in August 2024 he said he publicly regretted he apologized for what had happened because of the compliance that they had with the Biden Administration that used
▶ 2:41:14the executive branch inappropriately let's talk about more let's talk about education let's talk about our students and our professors and they came before this committee too and they told us how they were punished for holding conservative views different views than the mainstream and it could happen to you all it could happen to somebody with a progressive view or a liberal view it just isn't right every view should be accepted tolerated and encouraged in education they were disinvited they were deplatformed
▶ 2:41:44they were chap chased off of campuses by Angry mobs at the University of Buffalo conser conservative students were physically attacked at Cornell a student called for stabbing and raping Jewish women while professors continued to push anti-israel objectives Mr Aaron I never heard you say a word about any of this at suain Jewish students were beaten in a protest while administrators stood by and at Berkeley law and these are just a few examples student groups created
▶ 2:42:14Jew free zones Banning anyone who supported Israel from speaking cuz that's what it was about censorship because our free speech is the most powerful tool that Americans have this is all censorship the committee exposed it let's talk about healthc care doctors were Sil silenced scientists were blacklisted Intel officers suppressed DOD and FBI findings on the lab leak remember the lab leak in Wuhan impossible
▶ 2:42:44I said it man I was mocked that it really possibly and probably did come from lab and not from a wet Meat Market that was a big joke back then you were censored you were censored if you had a different opinion the CDC and the FDA withheld data on vaccine side effects it was censorship and this committee again exposed it the FBI the Department of Justice remember that stuff spying on conservatives spying on Catholic churches that were going to spying on concerned parents
▶ 2:43:14and labeling parents who were concerned about their kids and going to Schoolboard meetings as domestic terrorists they were trying to censor them and using fisa worst of all to go after millions of Americans inappropriately it was censorship and we exposed it the ultimate censorship the media the Legacy Media which pretended none of it was happening most folks never got to hear about it didn't even know there's still a lot of Americans that don't know it was all
▶ 2:43:46censorship and now I hear the other side lecture us about the abuse of power really seriously after what happened after the last four years you got to be kidding me it's unbelievable you know I was talking to a reporter outside before they said you know what's the one thing you regret they were doing a little bio on me in your years in politics and government you know what I regret is that every single American didn't have to sit here
▶ 2:44:16in these Judiciary meetings and hear what's going on to their country I wish they knew and they don't because the Legacy Media doesn't let it out barely covers it covers a tiny fraction of it I'm surprised we've survived at all with free speech hour after hour hearing after hearing case after case I wish they were here we fought back we won for now but we're in trouble around the world our country is in trouble we still are we could really be losing our freedom we
▶ 2:44:46could be going into a Dark Age Mr shenberger I have questions for you real quick I don't have much time please just yes or no sorry to do this to you has president Trump to the best of your knowledge ever pressured Facebook or Twitter to censor true information yes or no you know I actually I think you looked into this right I never saw the got to do this quick I'm running out of time we didn't see the request okay did pres president Trump ever last question I can't get through them all I'll ask that they'll be put in the record didn't did President Trump
▶ 2:45:16ever direct intelligence agencies to work with social media companies to suppress damaging news stories before an election not to my knowledge did President Trump ever label parents as domestic terrorists no did President Trump ever spy on Catholic churches no did President Trump's doj ever pressure big Tech to silence political opponents that's my knowledge did President Trump have done any of these things would the media say he was abusing power if he had done it I'm sorry if president Trump had done any of those things would
▶ 2:45:46the media say he abused his power absolutely thank you I gent gentleman from California thank you Mr chairman I want to thank you and the ranking member for holding this very important hearing on the First Amendment and of course censorship thank you also for all the panelists for being here appreciate your recommendations and contributions Mr Aaron I want to turn to you first I
▶ 2:46:16want to talk about Main Street back home home we're talking a lot about theories discussions but back home people care about bread and butter issues over the past two weeks more than 8,000 web pages on over a dozen government websites were taken down including over 3,000 Pages containing healthc care information CDC the they were taken down until yesterday when the federal judge actually
▶ 2:46:47ordered the public Health Pages put back up some of those pages information guidance on vaccinations an Autism that's what people care about back home so Mr arum we have vaccine mandates controversial but regardless of where stand how do people react to situation like this when the information they probably rely on paid
▶ 2:47:17for by federal taxpayer research on these pages is no longer available to them I I share your concern Congressman I think that we have a big problem again with taking the sledgehammer to all of these things censorship and coming is is this censorship is that the question sir it is well I I I want to be clear the government you know does have the ability to say uh this is what we're going to put on our websites to a point uh they have the ability to say these are our new priorities all these things right
▶ 2:47:47uh the problem we have is when that is extended out to stripping away the most basic information that people need for their health when you're talking about doctors suddenly unable to inform their patients about what's happening we have a more serious problem I think that's why the courts have intervened here uh because of the misalignment between let me cut you off real quick I'm just looking at the cdc.gov website vaccines
▶ 2:48:17and there's a little statement here cdc's website is being modified to comply with president's Trump's executive orders what would a parents say if they that I think it's just confusion I don't think people understand why is the government taking away this basic life-saving information why are they taking away information about uh you know
▶ 2:48:47diseases disorder website cdc's website is being modified to comply with president's Trump executive order this disclaimer is everywhere what's a parent what's a doctor supposed to do when he reads this you know I I share your concern Congressman that uh the idea that we're taking away basic health information basic scientific information making it harder for people to just uh know what's going on especially when they're dealing with serious disease
▶ 2:49:18serious health problems uh it's very unclear to me why this would be a priority for this Administration why they would be trying to take away life saving information that people rely on is there a chilling effect here on academic research no question no no question there is a chilling effect anytime someone has to say before I can do my job am I using the wrong words anybody who try to say if I make the wrong choice in what I say as an independent scientist
▶ 2:49:48does that mean my funding is going to disappear 17 inspector generals fired how's that affect academic research people working in these agenes where is the accountability going to come from I think that's the question when you you get rid of the inspector generals where is the independent voice when there is a problem when people's research is being interfered with When government processes are broken or ignored Mr Aaron for people watching this back home on TV what's an inspector General well
▶ 2:50:18as I understand it Congressman the Inspector General right is an independent office within a government agency tasked with uh making sure that that agency is is following the law ethics laws other laws uh and the procedures of that agency so they have investigatory power within an agency to be able to uh to be able to investigate and publicize address fraud waste and abuse to address fraud waste and abuse absolutely and so 17 of them were were
▶ 2:50:49fired the only reason to get rid of all the inspector generals on Moss is if you don't want them conducting investigations thank you very much Mr Aaron uh run out of time Mr chairman thank you very much gentlemen yields back if it's okay with our Witnesses we got we'll finish the the top row here and then we'll give you a quick five minute break and then we'll be back at it so the gentleman from Virginia is recognized thank you Mr chairman I want to Echo your comments from your introduction uh what a difference several years makes and while the censorship
▶ 2:51:19industrial complex is on the Run uh it is not gone and to that I just say thank God for Donald Trump thank God for Elon Musk thank God for Doge because we're uncovering that just where the tax dollars are going to fund the censorship industrial complex um Mr shellenberger the UN finances initiatives related to misinformation management or support uh supports Government funding and thirdparty development of censorship tools and Tech techologies correct
▶ 2:51:49yes and you're aware that US taxpayer dollars have been used by the UN to develop and Implement an AI assisted factchecking tool to label speech as misinformation disinformation and Mal information toxic or hate speech correct yes sir very disturbing in fact in 2021 the US gave the UN development program $190 million in taxpayer dollars and I verify what they've developed has been tested in five countries Kenya Honduras Liberia Sierra Leon and and Zambia and
▶ 2:52:19it's intended to expand to more countries does that concern you extremely the US un has also partnered with other other players in the censorship industrial complex including crowd tangle a Facebook meta connected factchecking tool Meen got $250,000 from the National Science Foundation for identifying and countering misinformation on closed messaging platforms an international factchecking Network ifcn a grant and fellowship making organization to help fact Checkers solution providers and other eligible organiz ations launch new and
▶ 2:52:49Innovative factchecking programs and initiatives um do you see I verify as part of a larger Global Trend towards centralized control over information yeah and we didn't have a chance to get to it but you know USA ID has been pushing digital IDs that would tie people's bank accounts to their social media profiles I mean it's out of Black Mirror I mean the idea would be that they'd be able to police and potentially debank you for something that you said online it's extremely disturbing and I was just kind of shaking my head because after two years of this we just keep discovering more censorship
▶ 2:53:20initiatives hidden in way in different agencies the UN usaid I mean it's it's Madness it's terrifying you you agree programs like you verify and the one I verify the one you just mentioned as well could be weaponized by authoritarian governments to silence dissent and and you've seen by our government this as well of course by our government as well and uh Miss supermania you've seen this as well absolutely I've seen the weaponization of uh government to go after after innocent people in
▶ 2:53:50my own country in Canada um the truckers protest of 2022 was a great example of that where people's uh people who protested uh they were debanked uh so if you were grandmother somewhere donating $50 to the protest you were frozen out of the financial system and it's it has a chilling effect to the point that people are now afraid of having their voices heard they they're afraid to express themselves because the consequences of expressing yourself
▶ 2:54:20freely in a country like Canada a G7 country people are afraid to speak out and I've only seen this in authoritarian countries that I've lived in and that is something that cons should concern us us all and it's happening here and and it's up to us to lead absolutely do you think that the Biden Harris administration's hostility toward Free Speech contributed to the increased attacks on Free Speech we were seeing abroad including pressure by Foreign governments against American
▶ 2:54:50companies to censor lawful speech absolutely um I'm glad you asked that question representative Klein uh when Elon musk's Free Speech rights were being attacked and they're still being attacked by the EU under the Digital Services act there was Silence from the Biden Administration you know what that did that sent a strong message to the rest of the world that the administration could not be relied on to retaliate against governments that suppress the Free Speech rights of Americans that's a powerful message and that's not good
▶ 2:55:21absolutely we have to continue to lead I'm glad president Trump's leading I'm glad Elon Musk is leading I've got a bill in end I verify it's called The End un censorship act I hope we pass it in this committee and can pass it on the floor with that Mr chairman I yield back gentleman yields back we'll take a f- minute break U we have freshments back there if you need them uh and then we'll try to get back at it as quick as we can committee stands in recess sorry about
▶ 3:02:46e e
▶ 3:03:46Oh I thought they were back we grabb
▶ 3:05:46e e
▶ 3:06:33okay committee will uh come to order the gentle lady from Pennsylvania recognized oh we got to wait for your witness I just saw I'm here I thought got some UC requests if you want to ranking members recognized thanks Mr chairman
▶ 3:07:03I want just wanted to ask for four unanimous consent requests and answer to some of the things that just came up one an article entitled Trump tried to suppress free speech on Twitter published by the Washington examiner February 9 2023 uh an article titled Twitter kept entire database of Republican requests to censor posts Rolling Stone February 8th 2023 uh the Trump Administration told Facebook and Twitter to remove posts that call for tearing down Confederate statues uh Business Insider
▶ 3:07:34June 26 2020 and finally an article entitled yes the Trump White House demanded Twitter remove Chrissy Tan's tweet calling Trump aab Vanity Fair on February 8th 2023 retion the G from Pennsylvania has recognized for 5 minutes thank you Mr chairman and thank you to our Witnesses for being here today uh with all of the crises that the Trump musk tag team has created in the past three weeks it's disappointing but perhaps not surprising that the chairman
▶ 3:08:04decided to waste everyone's time today by rehashing for the third or fourth time a second rate conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly exposed debunked and thrown out of court and while we're wasting this time the country is barreling toward yet another budget crisis as Republicans squabble among themselves and the president has turned the federal government over to the author of project 2025 and an unsupervised billionaire where they're generating a constitutional crisis per minute their
▶ 3:08:34actions are imperiling both our national security and Americans health safety and economic security so pardon our frustration that this committee is failing to address the very real and serious issues that are confronting our constitutional republic now this hearing is supposed to address government censorship of free speech the First Amendment which protects free speech and a free press is the Bedrock of our democracy and a democracy only works when its citizens are properly
▶ 3:09:04informed but right now both free speech and a free press are under attack by this Administration and Mr Trump's billionaire buddy Elon Musk in the past three weeks we've seen the Trump Administration use the the power of the government and its big Tech allies not just to promote their own views and lies about what they're doing but to punish or silence those who disagree we've seen the FCC reinstate complaints be made by Mr Trump and his allies against ABC NBC and CBS
▶ 3:09:34that had already been dismissed as being contrary to the First Amendment and seen the FCC open new investigations into other news outlets that have aired coverage with which the president disagrees the White House has G on a firing spree to silence the independent Watchdogs who've exposed alleged corruption and misconduct by you guessed it Mr musk and the president reporters have been evicted from Pentagon office spaces to make room for right-wing media and just yesterday the White House barred an AP reporter from the
▶ 3:10:04Oval Office because AP made an editorial decision to refer to the Gulf of Mexico by The Name by which it's been known for over 400 years and we've seen books websites employees research and whole Federal departments being purged of speech information and work ranging from healthare to civil rights to Consumer Finance if they don't align with the Trump project 2025 Manifesto so I agree with ranking member Rasin that our country is actually in a First Amendment crisis as a result
▶ 3:10:35of the actions taken by the Trump Administration and its agents Mr Aaron I wanted to inquire further about the concern raised by you and Mr Raskin about collusion between the government and Powerful Tech executives particularly in the case of White House special government employee Mr musk Mr musk has a long history of silencing his critics but what's different now is that Mr musk is a member of the Trump Administration and he's in charge of the extremely destructive rapid unscheduled
▶ 3:11:05disassembly of congressionally authorized and funded government departments so not only is he an unelected bureaucrat but as with the rest of this Administration he's resisting all oversight whether by independent Watchdogs members of Congress who have not abdicated their constitutional duties or the Press just last week as National concerns were mounting about the White House encouraging Mr musk to root around in Americans Private Financial and National Security data a Wall Street Journal investigative reporter managed to uncover
▶ 3:11:35concerning information about members of Mr musk's Shadow government team Mr musk called for the journalist to be fired for reporting accurate information relevant to oversight of the work he's allegedly performing at the direction of the White House basically for performing a core First Amendment function so can you comment on the First Amendment implications of Mr musk's attacks on journalists particularly given his new quasi governmental status and the big Tech megaphone
▶ 3:12:06that he controls uh thank you congresswoman I I do agree with you that this is really unprecedented where we see someone with this much government power and this much Media power combined together with really no oversight or accountability uh so we're seeing you know slashing funds that Congress has approved we don't know what they are but those trying to report on it those trying to say who's going in with their laptops into the treasury Department into the Bureau of fiscal Services into all these places downloading
▶ 3:12:37private information inserting AI reporters are trying to get at that story those who did including uncovering troubling information about some of the people who've been given this immense power and access inside the government suddenly become targets themselves and they become targets themselves because of Elon musk's incredible social media megaphone where he has which he has used to put his tweets front and center and in front of everybody so when Elon Musk says this person is a target they very much become a Target
▶ 3:13:07that is what we should be concerned about that kind of government overreach and censorship because Elon Musk is no longer just the head head of Twitter the head of X Elon Musk is a special government employee meaning he not only combining his Media power but now his massive massive governmental power which he's claiming entitles him to cancel contracts and fire people and do away and he points all of that at a reporter simply trying to do their job that is government overreach that is censorship and a violation of the first amendment I believe
▶ 3:13:37thank you Mr chair I would request unanimous consent to enter into the record yesterday's statement from the Associated Press in which the outlet describes how the White House violated the first amendment by blocking its reporters from the white from the Oval Office without objection gent lady Yi's back gentleman from Alabama is recognized hey thank you Mr chairman I appreciate the witnesses being here today uh Biden White House the Biden Harris White House has censored campaigns and and certainly they've targeted information satire like our friends at Babylon B and other content that did not necessarily violate the
▶ 3:14:08platform's um policies uh Mr Tab and Mr shellberg I kind of want to dig in a little bit with you guys on the Twitter files and and let y'all tell us a little bit about what you found so Matt what uh what was some of the I guess some of the really most revealing things you found as you were going through the Twitter files and and now Elon Musk understand was a Democrat you were a Democrat You' admit it being a Democrat but now we're seeing a shift so tell me Mr T what is it that causes the shift number one and number two what did you find that troubled you the most as
▶ 3:14:38you were going through that and then Michelle andberg I'll kind of want to pick your brain a little bit on that too Mr conon thank thank you for the question um I don't know the answer to the question of what caused the shift it's a mystery that we've all been trying to look into for years now um I don't know why uh there's a sudden concern um when it uh Donald Trump or Elon Musk does something but nobody stood up even for Democrats when they had their their speech suppressed in the Twitter files we found requests from
▶ 3:15:08the FBI uh that Aaron mate from The gry Zone be removed at the behalfs of the Ukrainian secret Services nothing no media major media organizations covered that in terms of academic freedom one of the first things that we found was that Dr J bataria who is in line to be the head of the NIH uh that he was on a Trends Black List at at Twitter that was uh on the first day of the Twitter files we found that um nothing nobody covered that they called it a big nothing Burger same thing with doctors like
▶ 3:15:38Harvard's Martin cuor for the University of California's zon kotti uh when they criticized lockdowns they were de Amplified Andor removed D um so academic freedom Suddenly It's a big concern I agree it's a big concern but it's a it's a concern in both places and uh so it's very frustrating uh to see that shift Michael do you have a yeah Michael if you don't mind talk a little bit about maybe the Twitter files and to the shift and and now where you're seeing people who would normally identify
▶ 3:16:08as liberal maybe are now coming to the side of our party or to political argument for conservatives to say hey Free Speech matters what you say you should be allowed to say what you want to say in a free market so I mean yeah I mean my view is that Democrats will look back at giving up the Free Speech issue to Republicans as just a catastrophic political failure I mean I've changed my mind on a lot of issues written two books about it but I never changed my mind about Free Speech never changed my mind about the illegality and immorality of
▶ 3:16:39weaponizing government you know when you look at the history of it in the 1930s the repression by FBI was against the left against the radical left you look at the defense of flag burning that was by the left you look at defense of free speech often it's by the left so it's been a reversal the left the Democrats came to embrace the weaponization of gun and censorship because they became so powerful and so entitled at ruling under the Obama Administration I believe and the intelligence servic I was going to ask you when you thought it started but you said earlier about
▶ 3:17:0912 years you could remember but certainly Biden hair is kind of doubl down on what Obama started but go ahead sorry me no that's right I mean I just think Obama you know after you know eight years of Obama they they they transformed the intelligence Community became Much More left-leaning Much More partisan and so there's an inorganic and an organic part of the weaponization and censorship but clearly you see people we reported on the activities of John Brennan Obama's CIA director authorizing reverse targeting or bumps to to basically instigate the whole Russia gate hoax
▶ 3:17:39you see these partisan actors in the intelligence and the Deep state agencies um engaging in these activities you see with Democrats as well and that's just bizarre for anybody that studied this yeah it's like the chairman mentioned just the fact that IRS happened to knock on mat door the day he was testifying here the whole system itself whether it was big Tech and the federal government that is a terrifying option when you see those people working together to Target the free speech of American citizens so and it wasn't just Twitter Matt I think we we saw a memo where meta
▶ 3:18:09you you said meta actually maybe Facebook had been targeted more I guess by the administration more difficult to get their message out or a little more stringent on how they allow them to speak freely so you want to maybe yeah I mean this committee uh did a an extensive report on the Facebook files the uncovered emails showing repeated requests from the White House to De amplify figures uh ranging from Tommy Len to Tucker
▶ 3:18:40Carlson uh constantly and we also found in the Twitter files uh similar communication from the same people um also reporter Alex Baron uh found this out about his own account from The New York Times he found this they repeatedly pressured Twitter to take down true information true reports uh and these again we're he's not even a conservative he was a he was a longtime New York Times Reporter who was removed from from the platform and again Silence from the mainstream
▶ 3:19:10press during that yeah I I never could figure out who the fact Checkers were Matt anyway I'll yield back Mr chairman gentleman yields back the general lady from North Carolina is recognized uh thank you Mr chairman and I'm thrilled that I got to go after Mr Moore because I'm hoping that our Witnesses today will apply their same strict construction on the First Amendment to the Donald Trump Administration I hope it doesn't matter who you think is violating
▶ 3:19:40people's Free Speech rights who is doing the censoring that you will have the same same ethics and the same Integrity I myself worked for the ACLU I represented people whose speech I did not agree with I believe we need a robust protection of the interchange of ideas however today not last session when we had these hearings today the greatest threat
▶ 3:20:11to free speech in America comes not from the media not from big Tech but from Donald Trump himself and he has just made that plain you don't even have to look around or have an investigative report he's just telling us what he's doing so this hearing today unless we talk about the Trump Administration as well is not about protecting the First Amendment
▶ 3:20:41rather it's a distraction from the fact that the Trump Administration is actively working to chill speech intimidate reporters manipulate the flow of information and manipulate the people all true First Amendment threats from the leader of the Free World and let's be very clear Trump thinks the First Amendment only applies to speech
▶ 3:21:11he agrees with his administration as we've heard is purging journalists from press briefings silencing reporters who dare to challenge him CNN The Washington Post the hill all evicted from their Pentagon offices and replaced by Outlets more favorable to the administration we just had the recent AP Kura over the Gulf of America why because this Administration
▶ 3:21:41does not want accountability it only wants propaganda Trump own Media Company truth social same name as what they call the Russian news source Pravda Pravda means truth did he rip it off from Vladimir Putin or the Soviets who invented that in the first place and it's not just the Press he's going after whistleblowers firing inspector's General purging career government employees who refus to bow to his
▶ 3:22:12demand he's sending a message speak out or simply do what you were hired for and you will be punished and he's done this before he's done it in court cases he's done it as a private citizen but now he has the weight of the government behind him and that is why the first amendment implicated now my colleagues on the other side of the aisle if they really cared about censorship they'd
▶ 3:22:42be condemning these blatant abuses of power that leave our nation less safe but instead they either sit silently or they enable it so let's talk about big Tech my Republican colleagues spent years attacking social media companies claiming they were biased against conservatives also starting their own all because the Biden Administration flagged certain post including one telling Americans to drink
▶ 3:23:12bleach during the height of the pandemic but now now big Tech because it's in their financial interest is cozying up to Trump they're rolling back content modern Moder moderation allowing disinformation and even hate speech to spread unchecked reports show that Trump and his allies are pressuring tech companies making sure their voices are Amplified while dissenting voices are drowned out if you didn't like it during the Biden
▶ 3:23:42Administration you have to condemn it during the Trump Administration ation Facebook also known as meta has gutted their content moderation and safety teams rolled back hate spee standards and when Trump was asked if the decision by mea was a direct response to Trump's threats to Mr Zuckerberg in the past he said probably yeah probably so when we talk about the first amendment it has to apply
▶ 3:24:12across the board I'm frankly glad we're having this hearing today so that we have the opportunity to raise these concerns so early in this very dangerous Administration thank you Mr chairman and I yield back General lady yields I now recognize Mr Kylie for five minutes thank you Mr chair uh today's hearing is an opportunity to acknowledge the jarring reality that for some years we did not have a functional First Amendment uh
▶ 3:24:43in this country the vast powers of the federal government were mobilized to do the very thing that the First Amendment forbids that is abridge the freedom of speech of American citizens and by using its influence over a few tech companies its ability to pressure to influence to gajo the government was able to conduct censorship at a scale and at a breadth that the founders could scarcely even have imagined and took it to extremes that none of us previously would have imagined it's now part of
▶ 3:25:13the history of this country it's a chapter in our history that the sitting president of the United States was removed from all the leading social media platforms the leader of one of the parties of major parties in our country uh was removed from the platforms it's now part of the history of this country that damaging information about a presidential candidate was suppressed on the eve of the election and then when it came to perhaps the most significant Global event in a generation uh covid-19 the government assured
▶ 3:25:43that citizens were not even allowed to provide a true trth ful account as to how the pandemic began you were not allowed to say 2 plus 2 makes four and you also were severely restricted in your ability to provide your opinion on what the proper governmental response was folks had their posts deleted for even daring to suggests that a 2-year-old shouldn't be forced to wear a mask for hours on end each day and of course as the Supreme Court has repeatedly acknowledged this has a chilling effect where folks then were forced to steer far clear of whatever
▶ 3:26:13that line of censorship might be and so there for every post that was censored there were many many other things uh that were suppressed as a result I think this is also an opportunity to acknowledge how important the oversight of this committee was in fact it's probably it is likely some of the most important oversight uh congressional oversight that has been done uh in the history of the United States Congress is that by uh exposing uh what Mr shellenberger has called the uh censorship industrial
▶ 3:26:44complex we were able to get tangible outcomes where censorship outfits uh were were ended uh specific tangible censorship operations uh were ended you even had Mark Zuckerberg come out and detail exactly uh the governmental pressure uh that was brought to bear upon him and he even went so far as to say that what Elan did for the Twitter Files Jim Jordan did uh for the entire industry but beyond those specific results I think that this oversight effort has
▶ 3:27:14also been success ful in preventing censorship from becoming a norm in American life which is I I think a very important result I mean we forget that freedom of speech is historically anomalous uh it's somewhat counterintuitive it's not even embraced by many of our nominally Democratic allies uh around the world today and I think we got frighteningly close to this deeply embedded Norm of our country's DNA of freedom of speech of that starting uh to really weaken and it's going to be important
▶ 3:27:44I think going forward uh to have guard rails in place to assure that these sort of censorship efforts don't repeat themselves but uh Mr shellenberger uh you know if we accept the premise which I think is true of course that the censorship industrial complex is on the uh defensive and certainly in Retreat uh in the federal bureaucracy we need to stay on guard but um are there other sites where it might be uh reposed I mean you've mentioned Global institutions but in particular our home state of California uh
▶ 3:28:15with bureaucracies that are just as if not more orwellian than some of these Federal bureaucracies with a governor who has vowed to Trump proof uh the state as well as it being the home to most of the major tech companies uh do you see risks there and how might we conduct oversight to make sure that doesn't happen yeah absolutely in fact my our friend and colleague Andrew lenthal just published a report about efforts at the state level to promote censorship and as you know one of the big pieces of censorship that Governor Gavin new promoted and others promoted was having doctors
▶ 3:28:45be censored for uh for uh not prescribing the official Orthodoxy when it came to co the other thing we see is a lot of media literacy programs are called media literacy they're basically just teaching kids to to accept whatever the mainstream news media tell them without questioning it it's the opposite of what John Dewey uh created with his critical thinking program in the University of Chicago this incredibly important um uh promotion of the idea of how to think critically not relying on Expert sources always being
▶ 3:29:15skeptical so I I do think there's a lot of work that we need to do and certainly our home state is a as a place to start thanks very much thanks to all the witnesses uh for your testimony and your assistance in this entire uh effort of this committee and I yield back the gentleman yields Mr ballant your recog y Miss ballant sorry you're recognized for five minutes thank you Mr chair let's talk about the real censorship that's happening right now we don't need some complicated hypothetical deep State plot because we are three and a half weeks into the Trump Administration
▶ 3:29:46and it is actively suppressing free speech and it's textbook authoritarianism this whole conversation has become so twisted and so confused so I want to bring us back to some Basics Mr Aaron is it accurate to describe censorship as the suppression of certain words that are considered politically unacceptable I think if the government is doing that uh that smacks of censorship yes is it it true that the
▶ 3:30:16government May intentionally try to chill speech by threatening legal action or other consequences to intimidate a speaker into silence that's certainly true so censorship can take several forms it can be the government Banning speech it can be the government creating an environment of fear that suppresses speech and I want to look at some of the examples that we are seeing right now with Trump attacking free speech last week Trump's guy in charge of the AG gency that's supposed to
▶ 3:30:47ensure Fair access to the media and internet FCC his name is brandan Carr he opened an investigation of a radio station that reported on an ice raid Mr Aaron is the government chilling or limiting speech when it threatens to investigate journalists for literally reporting the news I I think it's a huge problem the first amendment protects the rights of reporters to cover what the government is doing that's what the radio station in California was doing
▶ 3:31:17is it was reporting on something of very important Community interest so the idea the FCC would respond with an investigation with threats is very incredibly chilling to reporter's ability to do their jobs yeah it's outrageous these are the normal operations of any news organization uh so let's look what it let's see what it looks like when the Trump Administration intimidates and censors Americans look at look at something more more direct more immediate Trump's anti- Dei orders have resulted in a ban on using certain words
▶ 3:31:47in federally funded research and my colleague Miss jaul touched on this earlier I want to pick up this thread there's a list circulating at the National Science Foundation Banning the use of words like disability socioeconomic and even women I mean it's completely absurd that they're searching for when the word women is being used in federally funded research Mr Aaron is the government limiting speech when it bans the use of specific words like
▶ 3:32:18women if the government is saying that you will be ineligible for funding based on your free expression we have a we have a big problem we do have a big problem and Trump has made it clear that one of its one of his biggest targets for censorship is in fact um American women on day one Trump removed any mention of reproductive Health Resources from government websites and this purge included information on privacy protections under Hippa the law
▶ 3:32:48that keeps our health information private the Trump Administration also completely shut down reproductive rs.gov at the CDC officials removed contraceptive guidelines and web pages related to HIV testing in fact more than 8,000 government websites have been taken down in the last two weeks and this kind of censorship puts American women at risk Mr Aaron is the government limiting speech when it purges websites of previously
▶ 3:33:18public information I certainly think it is a a a terrible practice that endangers Public Health the government has its own views and they can make their own websites but the idea that they would strip away basic public health information that people need to uh you know make sure their kids are okay understand what medicines are uh all the research priorities that seems far out of bounds shocking it's shocking and I want to bring back closer to home my home state of Vermont at the University
▶ 3:33:49of Vermont professors are now fearing that there will be Federal retribution based on what they're teaching in class scientists can't conduct critical research because the world's largest funer of medical research has banned again let me say it again the use of the word women in research what we're seeing on the ground is not a liberal social media industry you want us to believe believe that the tech billionaires in the front row
▶ 3:34:19of Trump's inauguration are fighting for working people fighting for a liberal agenda give me a break I yeld back gent lady yields I now recognize Mr Fry you have five minutes thank you Mr chairman and I I I'm fascinated by this discussion I really appreciate y'all lending it because I think one of the biggest issues in this last election was this sens censorship industrial complex of course you guys uncovered a lot of that with the Twitter files and the like and the American people uh were rightly frustrated
▶ 3:34:50that the first amendment was absolutely bastardized by this last Administration and it happened at the presidential level and it happened if you were a doctor or if you were an individual concerned about the the the health and well-being of your family it happened relentlessly and we have seen it and I would think that there would might be some recognition on the other side that you know what maybe we overextended ourselves maybe we should not have gone this far to corrupt the First Amendment the way that we did but
▶ 3:35:20I'm not really hearing that uh today um Congressman fitzgeral briefly touched on the state Department's Global engagement Center and I'd like to continue that discussion uh on how the Biden Harris Administration used the gec to demonetize domestic media outlets and conservative voices Mr taibe the Washington examiner journalist Gabe Kaminsky reported that after Republicans ended funding for the gec the Biden Harris admin Administration made a last last ditch effort to keep it afloat um by
▶ 3:35:50realigning gec staff under a new entity the counter foreign information manipulation and interference Hub would you say that this Hub was just simply a rebranding of the GE yes Congressman absolutely it's a rebranding it's its mission statement is identical to the mission statement um of the gec as described in uh the 2008 legislation 2018 legislation is is the re bring of the GC and attempt to continue censoring information then particularly conservative voices
▶ 3:36:21uh that the former Administration and its allies deemed to be bad information that would be my impression I think it's important to talk about what uh Gabe Kaminsky found when he did his Series in the Washington examiner that the gec um was funding organizations like the global disinformation index The Institute for strategic dialogue so American money taxpayer money is sent overseas to foreign ities which in turn are scoring uh domestic media outlets and sending
▶ 3:36:51that information to uh digital advertisers like Xander and other other companies so we have UPR ranking of you know the Washington Post Politico all NPR down ranking of the Federalist Washington examiner uh and other organizations so we're picking winners and losers and and I say this not as a political conservative but that's the facts of the situation is that uh that's what that money was going for thank you for that and what role do you think Congress should take to stop those practices from occurring in the future
▶ 3:37:22I I think that you know the idea of preventing the spending um of money on media scoring operations and picking winners and losers uh it's not the government's job to try to help one media company succeed over another uh that's one of the reasons why we have such terrible media frankly uh is because companies that do a terrible job reporting um they should be accountable to the market and when they have artificial uh ability to survive thanks to
▶ 3:37:52these uh Subterranean Maneuvers that's one of the reasons why we have such a bad press y i I'd agree with you on that um following this committee's work last Congress a group of advertisers actively colluded against conservative media shutdown Mr shellenberger uh what role should Congress the FTC the doj uh have in preventing the next garm from resurfacing and colluding to the detriment of of uh Speech Eternal vigilance I mean and God bless you all for what you did around garm I mean it was incredible
▶ 3:38:23you know this was um one of the stories that we uncovered we had a whistleblower bring to us something called the Cyber threat intelligence League which was an early censorship effort in 2019 and they were basically taking all of these military tactics developed abroad for counterinsurgency repurposing them into a new manual a new handbook for how to do it at home and it includes uded this Advertiser pressure uh which has been a key component of it so you can see multiple things are going on they're creating these these nonprofit supposed non-government
▶ 3:38:53organizations to then flag information to be censored and they're putting pressure on the advertisers they're trying to change the the terms of service at the social media companies I mean one of the things that Mt just talked about is this group internews which we just discovered like five minutes ago which has been spending hundreds of millions of dollars and the head of it has been out there World economic Forum advocating pressuring advertisers that's our taxpayer money going to an organization that's out there demanding pressure on advertisers to demand more censorship of social media platforms and so by default at least under the old
▶ 3:39:23regime the American taxpayer is funding the demise of the First Amendment if we don't do anything about it and the good news is that if you defund the thought police they uh there's not that many independent there's not many people out there that want to independently fund the thought police and so if the government stops funding it we do think it'll it'll shrink quite a bit thank you for that Mr chairman yeld back gentleman yields I now recognize Miss mcbath for 5 minutes thank you Mr chairman and thank each of you for being here today and giving us your witness
▶ 3:39:53testimony I have read your your testimonies and I want to say We As Americans have fantastic opportunities owed by a First Amendment protections we're given the chance to be a better informed and more expressive Society but with such privileges comes a great deal responsibility many of us get our information from the news and yes we're getting it from social media too we share our musings or our special moments and photos of our meals
▶ 3:40:24many of our children are either or they will soon be on social media and will have a direct line to the world with Alles information misinformation as online bullying grows in its prevalence the role of Regulation and responsibility of social media companies becomes substantially significant in the same way you cannot believe everything that you hear and everything that you see you cannot trust that people
▶ 3:40:54will be any more honest online behind the veil of the internet and a keyboard on many of these social media sites a 50-year-old man can pose as a 15-year-old girl and a potential Predator could pose as your child's very best friend sensitive information like personal details or photos are too of often shared without the consent of those depicted and we are be and we've begun to see the terrible impacts of bullying online and
▶ 3:41:25shaming there are far too many stories of parents that are losing their children to self harm because these companies either don't take action fast enough or downright fail to implement policies to keep our kids safe we recently celebrated the passage of my bipartisan law to to protect our kids from online exploitation and Empower law enforcement to catch Predators who have sensitive or explicit material
▶ 3:41:55and I want to recognize those families of young people who have been lost to instances of online targeting for their courage and strength in sharing their stories I know how difficult it can be and we're grateful to have you with us in the fight to change our laws and hold these companies accountable but let's be honest today's hearing is a raction and undermines the very real pain and confusion that far too many families feel when some of the most powerful tech companies in the world fail to protect our
▶ 3:42:25children social media companies bear the responsibility of preventing harm and monit monitoring sensitive content that can endanger our loved ones and should not be intimidated by the powerful few when enforcing safety standards those of us on this side of the aisle at least are focused on the needs of American families over the needs of a wealthy few who attempt to control the flow of information online and in our media
▶ 3:42:55we will hold them accountable Mr eron my question is for you if social media platforms are prohibited from enforcing their Community safety standards and news media Outlets are unable to carry out responsible journalism for fear of retaliation by extremely wealthy individuals how are these platforms likely to change well I I do think we have a concern
▶ 3:43:26if uh you know social media platforms aren't en able to make their own decisions as private companies about and be responsive to the needs of their users uh who have asked for them to you know address the kinds of threats and dangers that you're talking about uh and we want them to be able to do that without fear of government retribution uh their own users are not telling them that they want them to keep up uh hateful content calls to violence
▶ 3:43:56you know obviously anything illegal they should act on but their own users are are are asking them to moderate content to improve their experience I believe that as private companies they do have right they do have their own rights their own speech rights to make some of those decisions if we force them uh I think that's a problem I don't think that's the role of the government I think it's the role of the users to keep them accountable I've spent a lot of time Haring these companies as I'm sure others have uh we're going to have to continue to do that I think when it comes to the media
▶ 3:44:27uh obviously if they are living in fear of Retribution they are they are under under the thumb of the administration their bosses are signaling that they will not back them up when their journalists are out there trying to report then we do have we have a a serious serious concern and I think a real threat to free speech well thank you so much and I think we're on a slippery slope here in this country and just thank you for your testimony and I yield back G lady y back G lady uh from Florida is recognized thank you Mr
▶ 3:44:57chairman and Welcome to our Witnesses today we are here to discuss censorship and one of the most alarming fronts in the battle against censorship is the left's early attempts to control and to intelligence instead of fostering Innovation and ensuring AI serves the American people Democrats have rushed to impose sweeping limitations and restrictions restrictions that have silenced voices
▶ 3:45:27that have distorted facts and that have the potential to undermine our competitiveness in the global stage there is growing evidence that artificial intelligence chatbots and models refuse to answer certain questions or can give skewed responses based on political bias the bid Administration in blue States pushed heavy-handed regulations with an approach that wasn't protecting Americans from real harm like uh China's AI driven propaganda or deep fate fraud instead it was
▶ 3:45:57about controlling speech some proposals even suggested that AI generated content should be pre-approved by the government that's not guardrails that is a Ministry of Truth America leads the world in technology because we Champion free thought thought open debate and competition if we overregulation who do not share our commitment
▶ 3:46:28to Freedom Mr taiii I would like to start with you do you think AI censorship has the potential to be more Insidious than social media censorship because it's baked into underlying algorithms making it harder to detect by the average user once it is there congresswoman thank you for the question I absolutely do think that in fact that was a a critical reason I think that a lot of us were alarmed when we worked in the Twitter files we were
▶ 3:46:58very fortunate thanks to the freak accident of an over caffeinated billionaire deciding to dump all the stuff into the public um we got access to all these emails showing the decision processes that led to all these different people being flagged or censored removed uh on the left and the right frankly but AI has the um with that technology there's the possibility that there would no be no trace of anything you could you could just give it some general guidelines and the entire process could be
▶ 3:47:28automated and it wouldn't leave um that kind of a trace for us to sift through later on that's why I think there was a significant alarm from what I understand talking to sources in Silicon Valley last spring that uh after having some discussions with the Biden Administration about their plans for AI going forward that was one of the reasons why there was a sudden shift in um the donations from Silicon Valley from one party to the other and if AI models are programmed to reinforce one political
▶ 3:47:58perspective while shutting down another what impact do you think that will have on the public discourse most especially for our young people who are receiving a significant amount of information from chat Bots and artificial intelligence I think it it's it's very scary because one of the things that we found again in the Twitter files is we were asking ourselves the question well how are they doing this how are they picking which topics to look at or which post to look at and ultimately we figured out that essentially they were
▶ 3:48:29pre- choosing narratives uh and then looking for posts that fell into the bucket of things that might constitute violations so for instance things that might have promoted vaccine hesitancy even if they were if it was true information even if it was somebody who took the shot and died for an unrelated reason or somebody who had an unpleasant experience getting vaccinated that would fall into the bucket of something that would promote hesitancy and AI would be far faster at doing the work of identifying narratives and identifying
▶ 3:48:59posts that fall into those narratives now the thing that's offensive about this to me as a journalist again is that this has nothing to do with the accuracy of the under underlying material it's the narratives that are important in this entire world and that's what's what can Congress do or perhaps more importantly should congress not do to help support an information ecosystem that is fair open and unbiased I think it's more in the in the
▶ 3:49:29direction of what they shouldn't do um shouldn't get involved I mean I think we're the the the nightmare scenario is what we're already seeing play out in Europe with the digital Services act where you have this gigantic um sort of retinue of what they call trusted flag bers going through information and constantly deciding which narrators are acceptable which ones aren't that's what we can have we cannot allow that to exist either formally or informally which is what we saw already happening thank you Mr chairman I yield back
▶ 3:49:59lady yields back gentleman from uh Illinois is recognized thank you uh Mr chairman uh ranking member uh to the witnesses here today as my colleagues have said the Free Press has played a fundamentally important important role throughout American history investigative journalists have exposed corruption exploitation discrimination and yes government lies so for all those Reasons I'm a little surprised
▶ 3:50:30that my colleagues from across the aisle my Republican colleagues would have chosen to revisit this topic after all it draws attention to the fact that shadow president musk who's currently serving as a quote unquote special government employee is also using a social media platform that he owns and controls to circulate deceitful propaganda on behalf of the
▶ 3:51:00regime that he serves Mr Aaron let me ask you uh a few questions how do lies coming from someone designated as a government employee damaged the flow of accurate information to the American people well you know I think the American people have an expectation that their leaders should be doing
▶ 3:51:30everything they can to tell them the truth so obviously if they're being fed uh falsehoods uh that would be that that's a huge problem and it creates you know obviously greater distrust in government and you know often obviously leads to things that government leaders don't want the public to know about and have you seen those types of falsehoods on exhibit since the president Trump was inaugurated well I imagine there's a long history in the government of uh of
▶ 3:52:00some people not telling the truth certainly president Trump uh has uh very often uh misled people lied relied on falsehoods exaggerations and the like and yes I think it's very concerning and what does it mean for a democracy when its richest citizen is using both major social media platform that he owns and His official status as a special
▶ 3:52:33employee what that title gives him to undermine the Free Press well I I think that the American public has a lot of people are questioning what power does that type will give him what what where where are the limits on Elon musk's power what is he being allowed to do and for him at the same time to be able to control a powerful social media platform uh and dictate those terms it's one thing to be the leader of a media company it's another to be a leader of the government
▶ 3:53:03when those two things are combined I I think that is where we get into uh a very troubling area and that's the ride that we're in right now one last followup uh Mr Aaron since a shadow president musk stood next to president Trump to make the claim that quote all of their actions are maximally maximally transparent When leaders use the tactics you
▶ 3:53:33just described are they generally trying to be more transparent or less transparent well in my experience congressmen when they're so loudly proclaiming how transparent they're being while not sharing information that usually means people are covering things up and don't want the public to know what they're doing thank you very much uh Mr chairman I yield back gentleman yields back gentleman from Texas is recognized sir I yield my time to the chairman appreciate the gentleman yielding uh
▶ 3:54:03Mr taibe is censoring false okay sorry Mr chairman no the the government has no role I was not supposed to censor false speech not supposed to censor wrong speech not supposed to censor stupid speech I mean you know Congress is guilty of doing stupid speech every probably every day um you're not supposed to do that because we have a First Amendment and the answer to stupid and false and wrong speech is more speech that's always that's what the that's the first amendment in in up that's it that accurate yes
▶ 3:54:33it is but it was particularly troubling in the last Administration that they censored so much speech that wasn't false and that would been that would have been bad that have been wrong it's a violation of the First Amendment but they censored so and you've referenced it multiple times whether it was Dr bachari Mr baronson a journalist for the New York Times things they said about covid that actually turned out to be true and that was censored right that was censored and then but the most dangerous misinformation of all is almost always comes from the government um under the previous
▶ 3:55:03administration and possibly even this one who knows but the the uh the Biden Administration was consistently wrong about in its Co messaging I think they were wrong about everything yeah they told us that it didn't come from the lab sure looks like it did and B number M of of government agencies that they think are got all the smartest bureaucrats the world say it came from the lab I think including the FBI for goodness sake something we've had a lot of problem with they said it wasn't our tax dollars used at the lab yes it was they said it wasn't gain of function research done to lab yes it was
▶ 3:55:33they said the vaccinated couldn't get it yes they could they said the vaccinated couldn't transmit it yes they could they said mask work no they didn't and then they said the six feet social dist in was based on science and Dr F set in a deposition I was there and he said it it's kind of made it up wasn't based on science so I think that they were 0 for eight but that's exactly the stuff if you disagree with any of those eight positions that's what they attacked so it was even worse it wasn't like false speech which is bad enough it was actually accurate stuff
▶ 3:56:04and you have to take my word for it Mr Zuckerberg wrote the committee a letter and said it was those kind of things relative to co that the Biden Administration day after day pressured them to censor that's scary and here's the thing we forgot I don't think this has come up I don't think it's come up in the hearing yet we've been at this what 3 and 1 half hours that Administration actually tried to set up a commission to police speech it was called the disinformation governance board as if a bunch of other bureaucrats
▶ 3:56:34could further tell us no you can't say that they were going to do it Mr what was her name Miss uh janowitz janowitz was going to lead this thing you're like what this is crazy so miss zont we were pretty close to being as bad as all the other countries you've talked about and frankly your country canidate we were right there but for the work of folks like you and others highlight this I'll let you finish up and talk about just how dangerously close the United States
▶ 3:57:05with the Constitution with the Bill of Rights with the First Amendment with free speech how close we were to having a disinformation government board for goodness sake absolutely here was an unelected bureaucrat who was going to tell you what the truth was and she was going to be the Arbiter of the truth and I think the United States came pretty close to um the kind of situation that you see in Canada um I just want to say a
▶ 3:57:35quick thing about billionaires you know billionaires have come up in the conversation here quite a bit but I don't recall anyone objecting to George Soros I don't recall anyone objecting to Bill Gates all these people were meeting politicians on the other side of the aisle and setting the agenda behind closed doors what's different now in my opinion is the fact that we have transparency um it's only been a few weeks but the fact of the matter
▶ 3:58:05is that musk tweets posts everything online president Trump has been extremely transparent about what what he's campaigned on and he's carrying out that agenda so I welcome the transparency it's still early days um you know this Administration has should be criticized if they're crossing the line and where First Amendment rights are under threat but you know I I the transparency which we see right now is very welcome and you know so I just find that the
▶ 3:58:35hypocrisy of picking on one billionaire and leaving out the rest is a little jarring yeah and he's and he's maybe when you talk about transparency he's certainly willing to answer the press's question probably more than any President we certainly more than the last one certainly more than the last one I yield back to the gentleman from Texas and thank you for yielding Mr chairman I yield back gentleman yields back the gentle lady from California is recognized Mr chair and thank you ranking member and I appreciate the witnesses for being here today
▶ 3:59:05uh I just want to break some things down for us lay people uh so Mr taibi first would you agree that Congress is part of the yes okay thank you and Mr Aaron thank you and Mr Aaron would you agree that the president the executive branch is part of the government yes or no I I would agree okay yes the president is government okay so now I'd like to talk about what is a public figure it is a person who has achieved
▶ 3:59:35Fame prominence or notoriety through achievement luck action or in some cases through no purposeful action of Their Own so members of Congress many journalists and some of you here are public figures and yes the president of these United States by virtue of the position is a public figure and as a public figure under wellestablished law there is a higher threshold for defamation you have to prove actual purposeful malice
▶ 4:00:05because as a public figure you are open to criticism we all are so what is censorship it is when the government dictates what you can and cannot say essentially tells you to shut up it's the equivalent of a very loud sh and so what happens when you don't sh when you express yourself when you share an opinion that doesn't square with someone's idea of Truth or that they feel hurts them well hello defamation it's lawsuit time
▶ 4:00:36and so if you defame someone they can sue you and if you win you can seek things like monetary damages money an injunction precluding you from doing what you did again in the future or a retraction you better say sorry my bad but the ultimate result is to shut someone up and to make others rethink speaking up now I don't think you all want to be told to shut up or do you
▶ 4:01:06do you want to be made to shut up I don't think so because that's censorship dictating defining what someone can or cannot say so since 2016 this president now the government has sued the Washington Post for defamation seeking $ 3.78 billion dollars in Damages over something about porn and banking he sued ABC news for defamation and they agreed to pay him millions of dollars and say sorry he sued a local
▶ 4:01:37Wisconsin TV station for defamation over a campaign ad talk about thin skin sued CBS news for deceptive false or misleading acts in Commerce seeking 10 billion over an interview and then meta got sued for the opposite for actually taking down Trump's account after January 6 when January 6 did happen people killed a member of the capol police there were cop killers in that Bunch who got pardoned but I
▶ 4:02:07digress and meta agreed to pay $25 million having some of the money go to the presidential Library Trump's friend got hired they said no more factchecking so in my hood that's what somebody would call a Shakedown and then sued CNN for defamation for one allegedly comparing Trump to Hitler and two describing Trump's false claims that he won the 2020 election so lots of defamation lawsuits from Trump a lot of chilling effect intimidation
▶ 4:02:37silencing and fear and if the government can come after CNN and meta then surely the government can come after any American that says something the government this President doesn't like so I was struck by the CNN defamation lawsuit because Trump sued them for the use of the phrase the big lie in connection with his 2020 election loss challenge but Fox News arguably the largest media Outlet in the country called Arizona in the 2020 election for Biden and Trump didn't Su Fox same story very different treatment from the president and then
▶ 4:03:07there's Hitler so a CNN correspondent allegedly compared Trump to Hitler and then JD Vance a public figure who wrote a book that became a movie who was on the circuit promoting the book texted a former Yale roommate actually calling Trump America's Hitler and this America's Hitler text was shared in news outlets around the country but only CNN gets sued and JD Vance gets picked as Trump's vice president such duplicity and a profound abuse of the laws of defamation because
▶ 4:03:37it's not really about defamation it's about censorship by this President supported by this Republican government and I could not find a single president in the history of this country who sued someone or an organization for defamation nor could I find a single president who tried to lower the bar for defamation lawsuits against the media note true statements and expressions of opinion are inherently not defamatory and I yield back General yields back General from wyomings
▶ 4:04:09recognize this committee has worked tirelessly over the past two years years to expose the censorship industrial complex and how censorship has permeated so many of our once trusted institutions we have confirmed for example that the Biden Administration pressured and coerced Facebook sleta and other social media companies to remove true and accurate Contex including the fact that the hunter Biden laptop in all of its horrific Glory did in fact belong to him and was an honest depiction of not only his life
▶ 4:04:40but of his corruption we exposeed the World Federation of advertisers or WFA and its evil spawn the Global Alliance for responsible Media or garm as being in reality a trillion dollar Anti-Trust operation designed to prevent conservative media from generating Revenue through advertising sales we informed the public that their government a government that they pay for was using third parties to prevent them from obtaining accurate information about Co covid-19
▶ 4:05:10and the efficacy of the vaccines we Expos the long term effort by our so-called political betters to censor our speech to prevent us from freely exercising our religion to prohibit us from assembling peaceably to destroy freedom of the press and to block our ability to petition our government for redress the five pillars of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution to say that what we learned is frightful and frightening is an understatement it is the absolute antithesis of a free and
▶ 4:05:40as Society if we cannot speak truth to power we have no power if the government can block the dissemination of valid legitimate and accurate information about our very health care then we are surfs not free people if the entire mainstream media complex is turned into a government P mouthpiece corruption becomes the order of the day and freedom equal protection the rule of law and accountability mean nothing there were numerous people who helped expose the Scandal including
▶ 4:06:10several on this panel today and the American people will thank you your willingness to take on the censorship industrial complex is admirable and it's not it is not hyperbole to say that you had a hand in saving our Republic we also learned that this censorship apparatus was not limited to just a few federal employees but was a whole of government approach that was launched to protect the bidens fouchi mayorcas and others while targeting Trump supporters and the disfavored and here we are
▶ 4:06:40the dust has largely settled and we have rested control away from wouldbe dictators pull back the curtains and turn the sunlight on on to disinfect the dark dank corners of Washington DC yet I am not aware of anyone who created this censorship infrastructure being held accountable for the last almost 10 years of Relentless well-funded and well orchestrated attempt to nullify the First Amendment here is my question are any of you aware of any political leader or federal employee
▶ 4:07:11being held accountable either by being reprimanded or fired being sued or having criminal charges brought against them for violating Americans First Amendment rights Mr shellenberger uh the only person I can think of is Nina janowitz who uh uh was basically forced to step down after didn't get a job what's that she didn't get the job yeah she just didn't get the job Mr taibi are you aware of anybody being punished no I can't think of anybody Mr Aaron uh based on your description I I don't I don't Mr
▶ 4:07:41subra I'm not aware of any politician anywhere on the planet in anywhere in in the Western Hemisphere who's been held to account for violating people's Free Speech rights so don't you find it strange that the architects of this situ situation have not been held accountable for violating our rights on his first day in office president Trump issued an executive order prohibiting Federal officials from engaging in censorship and directing reviews of previous Federal involvement in censorship and I think that's
▶ 4:08:11a good first step but I don't think it's enough I believe that Congress must act to defend the First Amendment which is why I developed legislation with representative Dan Bishop last Congress now introduced in this Congress as the first amendment accountability act which aligns with the president's executive order but it has actual teeth in it and what my accountability act says that it creates a federal version of 42 USC section 1983 a civil rights statute and it says that it should a federal
▶ 4:08:42employee deprive any person of their first amendment rights the EMP employees shall be held liable to that person for damages a suit inequity or other proper proceeding for redress including the award of attorney's fees will the general yield for a friendly question for friendly question no Mr Aaron do you believe that an individual employed by President Trump in the white house should be able to violate your first amendment rights to censor your speech yes or no uh no I don't think should be censoring so I take it that you support my first amendment accountability
▶ 4:09:12act to make sure that such an action never happens and if it did that you would have a remedy to protect yourself is that right I would be happy to look at the legislation and the text you've prepared and as to each of the rest of you Mr T Mr shellenberger and Miss suban do you believe that the First Amendment accountability Act is a good idea I do it sounds good to me but I'd love to read it I support it thank you I yield back just as just as importantly the the chair and the ranking member support the
▶ 4:09:42legislation it's a good it's a good bill and with that we yield to the gentleman first full committee heing the gentleman from Florida is recognized uh thank you Mr chairman you know when I when I got to Congress I wanted to be on the Judiciary Committee but I was placed in purgatory with comr and I was worried about all the stuff that I was going to be missing in judiciary chairman Jordan started today the hearing he said what a difference four years makes
▶ 4:10:13well apparently not because today is Groundhog Day so I just want to thank the chairman he knew I had fomo missing out on all these hearings and so I brought pictures of the chairman doing this hearing so here's one picture from March 9th 2023 he did this hearing then on March 30th he did the hearing again 2023 different tie oh we'll get there we'll get there Mr chairman here's one from July 20th doing the same
▶ 4:10:43hearing November 30th same same hearing okay February 6th same the same hearing same witness there's so many more April 11th identical hearing and finally May 1st the same hearing so by the way anyone keeping score the chairman wore a red tie four of those hearings a yellow tie three times but today at the eth hearing we are even now today
▶ 4:11:13is yellow tie day so four Yellow Ties four red ties I tried to match you Mr chairman but mine's a little more gold I will work on the Hue but it is the golden age ah the age but at least I now know what to get the chairman the gentleman y for Christmas well I'll yield in a second okay but but Mr chairman don't let comr out comr you I mean James is out there coming around with new falsehoods and we're doing a hearing that we've done eight times if if you need
▶ 4:11:43some ideas we we got some I mean I feel bad for the ranking member I mean ranking member Rasin came all the way over here from oversight we had a vote in fact several of us came over here from from oversight so if you need some ideas from from us we'll we'll gladly assist but look we're doing Free Speech okay so since we're doing free speech in censorship I want to talk about a former friend of this committee and winner of the Nazi of the month club Kanye West and while
▶ 4:12:14there are no eggs on the Shelf there is definitely egg on your face last week there were an endless endless amounts of Nazi tweets by Kanye West I'm going to read some of them I love Hitler I'm a Nazi Jews were better at slaves Hitler was so fresh I can say Hitler as much as I want it it went on for days that wasn't enough he ran a commercial during the Super Bowl directing people to his website and the only thing the website was selling was a shirt with a swastika
▶ 4:12:45so the marketplace of ideas they say oh Jared but it's the marketplace of ideas well as we mainstream Nazis what happens when Nazism becomes the marketplace the chairman said he's worried about Europe maybe we should go to Europe while we're there maybe we should go to aitz to see what happens when you mainstream Nazis Mr shellenberger would say but Jared free speech is absolute don't be a censor but actually Kanye actually accidentally
▶ 4:13:15disproved that idea he proved that free speech is not absolute you see what happened was he started posting porn on x and then all of a sudden the conservative Free Speech Masters of the Universe were outraged Elon unfollowed him and then labeled Kanye's account so imagine if Kanye had only posted Nazi porn well Mr shellenberger and other conservatives would be saying well the Nazi part is okay as long as they keep their
▶ 4:13:45clothes on so remember if you're a Nazi just keep your SS uniform on don't take it off because that's when we're going to get to censorship and so look you know this is a hearing about Free Speech my colleague from Texas said nobody blamed Biden for the cost of eggs and he has every right to say it because it's Free Speech but that is total okay the all of my colleagues were blaming Biden from eggs former president
▶ 4:14:16president Trump blamed him on October 26th before the election blaming him for the price of eggs so let's get some grip now Mr chairman I will yield to you well I was just going to ask a question um if we ask our witness but I'll ask you since it's your time um if you're going to have eight hearings on something I can't think of something much better than protecting the fundamental Liberty that makes this as Miss suban said last Congress that is the Hallmark of
▶ 4:14:46Western Civilization the ability to debate and protect the most fundamental right we have because all the other rights in the First Amendment don't mean squat if you can't talk and that's what we're defending so we should have maybe had nine or 10 hearings because this the first amendment in free speech is so darn important and I would just maybe ask Mr shellenberg or Mr Ty you think think we could have more hearings on something this important well first of all Congressman um thank you for your advocacy for UAP disclosure I'm glad that we agree on that one
▶ 4:15:16and I'm right there with you on that all the way um I'm with I'm with the Supreme Court on this issue of Nazism aren't you I mean do you disagree with the Brandenburg decision so the answer and the SK Rula reclaiming my time I know we're over Mr chairman so I I'll land I I'll land the plane for you what you're describing is a time when two or three or a dozen Nazis could March in a neighborhood things have changed dramatically when a Nazi with 30 or 40 or 50
▶ 4:15:46million followers can build a a whole platform behind being a Nazi you don't have to listen to me look at the data with what's going on in anti-Semitism in Europe and in this country that's not happening because 20 Nazis marched in a community it's happening because we've all we're allowing it to proliferate in an online platform and so IID say Mr chairman you're right freedom of speech is super important but you guys won the election I've never seen a team win the game
▶ 4:16:17and then go out and be like the rest the rest the rest you guys won it's over we lost Biden's back in the basement where you say he lives you know like it's we're good but Congressman do you really think that the founders meant for a New Media technology like radio or telegraphs to Su to the change the first amendment I mean did they write the First Amendment and say well but if a future techn comes along like the telegraph or the television the radio then we're going to go ahead
▶ 4:16:47and get rid of the First Amendment no we're not getting we're not getting rid but why gentleman has expired we will we we got others looking forward to more talks later yes the uh gentleman from Texas recognized for five minutes thank you in 2020 what you were viewing on Facebook Instagram and Twitter was it an organic Newsfeed it was a state approved news feed curated by the Biden Harrison this might sound familiar this news feed is brought to you by fizer
▶ 4:17:17this news feed is brought to you by the Biden Harris Administration this news feed is brought to you by the big Russia lie and we know what's true because 51 Intelligence Officers said it was right wrong Republicans conservatives and America First Patriots endured years of gaslighting censoring demonetization suspension de banking collusion to deplatform and every restriction of free speech imaginable all under the Biden Administration in the past several
▶ 4:17:47years we have witnessed the greatest assault on the first amendment in American history but remember the Democrats are the party of preserving democracy right we expected this type of censorship from the bin heresy Administration but what we didn't know was how coordinated their efforts were with big tech companies like meta Amazon and Twitter what I want to talk about today are the group responsible for this censorship now Twitter has been saved thanks to Elon Musk but
▶ 4:18:18meta remains in the hands of the very people who worked with the bid Administration to silence our voices I know that meta recently changed their policies concerning censorship and Free Speech but who's to say that those changes will be permanent let's talk about meta political content figure which magically disappeared upon the new Trump Administration will this political cont filter magically reappear if the Democrats take back the White House at some point
▶ 4:18:48in the very distant future will vo will voices like mine and many of my colleagues in this room be suppressed ahead of the midterms these are all questions that inquiring minds really want to know now you might have noticed that recently Mark Zuckerberg has been on the Press tour to repair his Pro censorship image but those of us who have been subject to censorship especially this us congressman I don't forgive and I don't forget quite so easily let's not forget that meta banned
▶ 4:19:18the sitting president of these United States of America from Instagram and Facebook and interestingly enough meta banned president Trump before Biden even took office so you can't defecate on the president's First Amendment rights and call it chocolate pudding at this point and just because you give him a million dollar expost facto does not changed the fact that you did this and this actually happened I've seen Democrats on TV for the
▶ 4:19:48past week scream Elon Musk Elon Musk musk musk musk musk musk musk it's been quite invigorating actually I'm really enjoyed it and what's funny about it to me is that you're mad at the guy that found the fraud but not mad at the people that wasted your money here in Congress we clearly can't cut a budget so I really thank Elon for doing our job for us Mr shellenberger thank you for being here sir as a leader as as a leading expert in the suppression
▶ 4:20:18of freedom of speech what is the most egregious example of censorship from meta that has occurred during the Administration in your humble opinion I mean probably the the censorship of what Facebook itself called uh true stories of vaccine side effects these are ordinary moms and dads who are describing the impact of vaccine on their kids and they were censored without their knowledge and against the opinion of Facebook's own Executives who said if you want to increase
▶ 4:20:49vaccine hesitancy there's no better way to do it than to censor people that are trying to share those stories I mean that's the most fundamental kind of conversation that we should be allowed to have between ordinary folks and Facebook secretly censored it on uh at the behest of the Biden Administration do you see a return to some of the policies that I was referring to uh with meta in terms of you know the upcoming election the coming midterms the future I I I understand right now it's really cool because president Trump won so now now now you want to be
▶ 4:21:19in the in the cool guy Club but what measures do you think need to be done or do you see a potential return to that if we don't get this right you know in the next you know 18 months I mean I think yeah absolutely I mean look I think uh Zuckerberg um his statements was were amazing recently but of course he had made similar statements including defending Holocaust Denial on Facebook in 2019 he went back on that that as you mentioned he deplatformed the president so not super reliable so I do worry about that I think the most important thing for do for Congress to do is to
▶ 4:21:49find every penny that's going to censorship activities in the federal government phase them out and then some investigation to hold the right people accountable because I'm with you I I was censored on Facebook for sharing true information as well and uh I won't easily forget it thank you very much back to my time thank you sir gentleman yields back the mayor of New York uh gentleman from New York is recognized thank you Mr chairman uh of the eight hearings on this topic
▶ 4:22:19uh I do give you credit this is only the third one with these same Witnesses um this one though introduces a new wrinkle censorship by foreign countries of course which Congress has no jurisdiction over so I do give you some credit cuz at least the first two with them had something to do with our yet okay now let's look at what has happened over the past 3 weeks Donald Trump pardoned more than 15500
▶ 4:22:50criminals from January 6th including hundreds who were convicted of assaulting police officers so much for backing the blue he tried to freeze all federal funding SNAP benefits Medicare Medicaid Social Security tax refund checks you name it he illegally fired senior officials and inspectors General and even the director of the office of government ethics because they might God forbid provide accountability to the convicted felon in the White House and the president
▶ 4:23:20has given an unelected billionaire Total Access to the inner workings of every executive branch agency and he is freely terminating government contracts and government officials now whether you agree or not with whatever Donald Trump and Elon Musk are doing it is a breathtaking and unprecedented usurpation of government power and instead of Congress actually using its oversight authority to provide a check and balance
▶ 4:23:51on this government takeover the Republican majority is once again here talking about Hunter Biden's laptop the Twitter files from many years ago and now a new one censorship in Europe now when asked about what guard rails there may be on Elon musk's infiltration of our federal government this past weekend the chairman said and I quote the guard rails are all you all in the Press who are talking about it every day end quote
▶ 4:24:21the press the Press what about Congress Mr chairman our Constitution places responsibility for oversight and accountability on Congress not the press it is almost as if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle wake up in the morning and think how can I undermine my power let's be very clear nobody has any idea what Elon Musk is doing including the president including
▶ 4:24:52my friend from Texas who has no idea whether Elon Musk has found fraud or not and I find it shocking that my Republican colleagues are willing to Simply take elon's word for it just yesterday Mr musk admitted that at least some of what he says is incorrect so even Elon Musk does not take his own word for it now how about this committee investigate Elon musk's rampant conflict of
▶ 4:25:22interest Mr chairman he has six companies that have at least $13 billion of government contracts and here he is making decisions about what government contracts should be cancelled and I want to introduce by unanimous consent an article in the New York Times from yesterday that talks about the 32 ongoing investigations into Elon Musk and his companies this article outlines how
▶ 4:25:52M Trump and musk have fired officials in 11 federal agencies that are leading investigations or enforcement matters or lawsuits pending against Elon Musk now all the investigations have stalled lucky Mr musk can't be the conflict of interest objection so the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has received hundreds of complaints against Tesla last week after Elon Musk gutted the a that agency that prot
▶ 4:26:22protects everyday Americans against corporate greed M Mr mus tweeted rip now these are clear conflicts of interest and it is clearly within the jurisdiction of this committee to investigate with our oversight power the conflicts of interest and you know what the White House's response is let the guy with the conflicts decide if he has conflicts just yesterday Mr musk announced that he canceled 89 government contracts
▶ 4:26:53worth $881 million in the Department of Education that's money Congress appropriated we have the power of the purse maybe it's wasteful maybe it's not I have no idea you have no idea but it's a blatant violation of the law and the Constitution and apparently my Republic colleagues are so weak and afraid of Donald Trump and Elon Musk that they're willing to undermine their own constitutional Authority just to please them you're giving away your
▶ 4:27:23own power in fty to Donald Trump so Mr chairman I ask that for our next hearing we actually do some oversight and accountability of what this Administration is doing right now not what the Biden Administration did years ago and I yield back gentleman yields back I would just ask Mr shenberger if European law results in the censorship of Americans is that something that the Judiciary Committee should be concerned about yeah absolutely and you just you shared that information this morning on X
▶ 4:27:53the post about the judicial ruling in Europe which says that they do think they have the right to do that and we keep seeing this similarly in Australia where you see these authorities who think that they should be able to censor the entire Global Internet of of disfavored information so it's very disturbing and like I said it really really makes you question our alliance with Europe Mr chairman I have a unanimous consent motion gentleman is recognized uh I asked to introduce by unanimous consent a letter from uh seven members of Congress including myself to Inspector General Michael Horowitz of
▶ 4:28:23the doj asking him to investigate egregious conflicts of interest of acting Deputy attorney general Emil B and acting United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin you're you're asking enter into a record a letter you sent to who to the Department of Justice Inspector General Michael it's one of the very few who was fired um without objection all right that's fine uh the gentleman for North Carolina is recognized for five minutes thank you Mr chairman to the
▶ 4:28:53Committees who have been here for a marathon hearing uh there's been a lot of talk about how many of these we've had this is my first one and uh I have uh been very appreciative about what I've heard from the role that each of you all have played in uncovering what is a um a truly horrific episode of censorship I saw as a private citizen unfortunately I was not here to help uncover and to fight back against the censorship over the last 3 to 5 years uh but nonetheless I am deeply grateful to
▶ 4:29:23this committee and to all of you for your past and continued efforts to protect the First Amendment uh I must say that I'm somewhat astounded that there has not been one colleague on the other side of the aisle that has brought themselves to acknowledge much less criticize the very obvious and and blatant efforts of the Biden Administration to suppress information uh in a very very problematic anti-ir Amendment and I would argue illegal way and part of this has been admitted by those who were censored
▶ 4:29:54it's been admitted by those who are in the Private Industry who were bullied into removing content but I want to talk uh more about what's going on right now Mr sber I want to start with you you mentioned that you are still uh within the crosshairs of the censorship industrial complex and it's a wide variety of of of actors agency uh contractors private companies uh even universities and so forth who is who what what's the end goal of this censorship that we're
▶ 4:30:24seeing not just here in the United States but also uh in places like Brazil where you're being investigated yeah thank you well yeah thank you for asking that question yeah I mean it's it's interesting to hear a lot of concerns about who gets to be in The Limited space in the defense department by the way Huffington Post is a leftwing magazine that got in and uh and and who works for a Centrist magazine that's in there it's just not a censorship issue or changing the website that's pretty ridiculous I'm actually under criminal investigation in Brazil for expressing true facts on X that's actually
▶ 4:30:54happening right now uh you know similarly we see in Europe uh you know very serious penalties for people that supposedly commit the act of misinformation and then in Canada uh there's actually life imprisonment uh as a potential punishment for what's the what's the end of these laws and these efforts is it total political power is it just the easy eradication of dissent what what is the goal yeah I mean total information control is definitely the goal they want to they want to control the information and also shape how people understand it that's why they talk about narrative
▶ 4:31:24control and then the other part of it is they want to scare people they just want people to be afraid to say things online so that they can remain in power or you know yeah absolutely and you see some of it just in the vanity of politicians demanding that posts about themselves be taken down but obviously that's important for their political careers and that's why in Brazil they've actually banned whole politicians from being online and in your estimation we've obviously heard about information that has been taken down and forcefully removed but the narrative control also it brings to mind narratives that are written and pushed
▶ 4:31:54into the public sphere and one thing that's of concern to me is whether it was the Russian collusion narrative the Russian dosier the Biden laptop Scandal trying to discredit what seem to be a very obvious uh verified piece of evidence uh questioning Biden's role in enriching himself that was that was made uh out of bounds questions about the vaccine we all are familiar with those the vaccines Effectiveness the effect of the vaccine uh looking at the news media is there a part of this that that uh would would
▶ 4:32:25or I would submit to you where the narrative is pushed into various Outlet to further the sensors objectives well yeah I mean you see right now right everybody's saying constitutional crisis if you just Google that it's like all over everybody repeats themselves in the mainstream news media um but look I mean we're in a new world now we have more platforms that are open I think it's much harder to get away with lying as the New York Times did last night when it claimed that that that there was no evidence of fraud for musk so I do think it's a new environment but that's why you have to that's why you have to keep the government
▶ 4:32:55from putting pressure on these social media platforms so they can continue to let the conversation and just very briefly is what's happening now with Elon Musk who is who is uh highlighting the waste Fraud and Abuse of usaid and other expenditures and what happened under the Biden Harris Administration with their censorship efforts are those to aligned are they in any way uh synonymous with one another well I mean yeah I mean in terms of things not changing and when we were here two years ago Elon Musk was the big you know the devil because he was allowing free speech to proliferate on
▶ 4:33:25on on what was then Twitter and you hear it today I mean people get we heard a lot of people get up today and talk about how they support Free Speech but we have to stop all the racism and hate online well that's a call for censorship I mean let's just be perfectly clear if you're calling for censorship of hatred and and racism or anti-Semitism online you're calling for censorship and that is completely anema to the American tradition to our Supreme Court rulings to Brandenburg and its reinforcement in skoi so look we've had a lot of technological revolutions with different media
▶ 4:33:55sources we had the since since 1770 since 1776 1789 we've had the telegraph we've had radio we've had television now we have the internet somehow we've managed to keep our tradition of freedom of speech in the First Amendment alive despite those technological revolutions after after which every single time somebody was saying that oh everything has changed and we have to we have to now amend or qualify the First Amendment and mayad close there one question uh to you sir how is AI going to make it easier or more difficult to apply censorship
▶ 4:34:25for gain either or yeah um AI would be would allow these companies to detect narratives and and enforce all of these structures uh with much greater speed than we saw in the Twitter files and the the process that they're going through with the DSA which right now requires huge armies of people to or what they call trusted flaggers to go through information um
▶ 4:34:55personally they can do that with AI with almost no investment at all and that's that's the terrifying part thank you II back gentlemen yields back uh I would ask unanimous consent to enter into the record maybe the first time I've ever entered into the record of the New York Times article but this is from uh two years ago EU law sets the stage for a clash over disinformation I just want to read one paragraph in into the record here too the law the Digital Services act which Mr tab just referenced is intended to force social media Giants to adopt new policies and practice to address accusations
▶ 4:35:26that they routinely host and through their algorithms popularize corrosive content if the measure is successful as officials and experts hope which has happened its effects could extend far beyond Europe changing company policies in the United States and elsewhere that's where the get the leverage and pressure on the companies to censor Americans in Europe don't have it in Brazil but Mr Mr selberg has felt it firsthand in Brazil that's why we're focused on this issue the the gentle lady Miss Crockett is recognized for five minutes thank you Mr
▶ 4:35:56chair and just in case I go over I just wanted to note that the previous speaker went over by a minute um we've heard we've heard a lot about the fact that Democrats have been talking about Elon Musk and let me give you a news alert we not going to stop talking about him we going to keep talking about him until he is out of here now if he wants to be elected or appointed and confirmed to something then so be it but as of right now we have somebody that for whatever reason I don't know if y'all just trying to play in our
▶ 4:36:26face because you think we're stupid or if you literally just cannot see the difference in a George Soros and a Bill Gates but let me give you a little bit of the difference number one George Soros nor Bill Gates ever somehow decided to turn off the SP of money that was going through to various organizations and agencies to the extent that it had actually been ordered by law that they should have access to it to the extent that people are dying there are people that have died as a result
▶ 4:36:56of this antic and there are Now farmers that are screaming that they may lose their family farms because we have over $500 million worth of food that is sitting and not going anywhere because of the attempt to shut down us Aid so let me tell you you that is the big difference between the two of them and let me also tell you that a big difference between Democrats and Republicans is that we don't just say we believe in the Constitution but we walk it like we talk it what does that mean that means that if we believe in the Constitution we don't just pick out the Second
▶ 4:37:27Amendment and say that it is Limitless nor do we pick out the First Amendment and say that it is Limitless the thing about the Constitution is that it has always been a balancing test there are limits to this and right now what we continue to hear from a certain side of the aisle is that there are no limits to this lawlessness in fact there are limits and I can tell you that one of those limits typically is around hate crimes you may or may not know that when it comes down to it if somebody decides
▶ 4:37:57that they want to send something hateful and say the US mail they can actually go to prison for that up to five years in prison so yes there are always going to be limits so when we start to talk about Trump and him being pulled down on any platform this just happened to be after he incited an Insurrection this just happened to be after in a bipartisan way this particular chamber decided that they were going to impeach him
▶ 4:38:27so there was something a little different about what he did because as we know it led to people actually dying but let's talk about who's doing the nefarious things with the tech Giants because I don't think that one side of the aisle is promoting truth but sometimes it may seem a little treasonous all right so we've got this article right here about this guy meta says it will end its factchecking program on social media post I'll
▶ 4:38:57talk about that a little bit later then we have Washington Post says it will not endorse a candidate for president we also know that actually they absolutely intended to endorse kamla Harris we have this one Google Maps now show Gul of America instead of Gul of Mexico for app users in the United States which is a complete farce because it's the Gulf of Mexico it always has been and we know that the AP got kicked out yesterday because they refused to buy
▶ 4:39:27into this lie cuz that's all y'all really want to promote is lies that's the big issue that we have Elon mus boosted false us a conspiracy theories to shut down Global Aid now while he was Boo boosting those lies about us Aid and he was stopping money going for say things such as Head Start somehow the only money that didn't stop was the money to him and his organization now I don't know how you can have him be the Watchdog as
▶ 4:39:57well as the guy that is literally living off of the government if we want to talk about government welfare it looks like Elon Musk because it's my understanding that just on yesterday a new contract was approved for approximately $300 million for Elon Musk so listen I just want y'all to be honest you want to sit here you want to lie because so often we hear well you know yeah we did lie in fact he admitted that he lied when he was in the Oval Office yesterday
▶ 4:40:28but if it's a lie that will get you into office such as saying I know nothing about project 2025 yet on day one you literally do everything that you can to implement it including making sure that you put say one of the main architects of project 2025 over the OM it's okay so long as you get the power that you seek the problem is that the game is going to be on the American people and when I say the American people I mean all of us unfortunately
▶ 4:40:58I am also stuck in the Twilight Zone because of the lies that were allowed to be propagated just like when you're talking about vaccines and all this nonsense right now in my state of Texas there is an outbreak of measles and what they are finding is that because there's been so much disinformation about vaccines that kids are sick right now with measles that they did not have to have if they just trusted doctors and experts instead of randoms online so
▶ 4:41:28I will end by saying this Mr chairman because I know we believe in Jesus in in this chamber in John 8 and 32 it says the truth shall set you free so so maybe we should focus on a little bit of Truth in this chamber I'll yield gentle lady yields gentlemen from Wisconsin's recognized thank you very much I'd like to thank the chairman for having this hearing might be the most important hearing we have this session I think it's sad that we've had some of the members on the other side
▶ 4:41:58of the aisle talk about how we this is a a minor matter and we should spend more time talking about uh uh bird flu but uh in any event thank you for having the um the public should again and again hear about the danger to the First Amendment that's going on because I know when it comes to election season they poll stuff and they do insist you know spend more time talking about the price of eggs and somebody trying to take away the First Amendment but
▶ 4:42:29let's go let's talk a little bit about some other countries so we see where we may be headed Mr shenberger uh could you elaborate a little bit more about what's going on in Brazil and how it affects this country sure I mean Brazil is there's a lot of lessons that are important from Brazil I mean the first is that um it makes you appreciate the First Amendment and that it was written in such an unqualified way I mean you may know Alexander Hamilton didn't think we needed a First Amendment because it was redundant we did it anyway because we the you know people that created this country really believed
▶ 4:42:59in it in Brazil the Constitution does not provide that level of protection there's too many qualifications what you're hearing from this side of the aisle today is that oh we got to qualify the first amendment in all these ways the Supreme Court has made it very clear what those qualifications are so you've got a constitution that allows for the Supreme Court to engage in just ridiculous levels of censorship they've now banned some politicians from every single social media platform they've also sought to deep they've Frozen people's banks accounts for things that they've done
▶ 4:43:29that would have been considered a First Amendment right in the United States um as you see they've targeted foreigners like myself for publishing uh inconvenient information so yeah Brazil is a warning for us I think about what can go wrong if you stop believing in the essential importance of free speech by the way uh commenting on the on the last uh questioner is hateful speech Free Speech no absolutely not that was inaccurate I mean uh you can say hateful things
▶ 4:43:59you can mail hateful things I think what the Congress person was referring to is that it's illegal to threaten people as it should be just like the line at brandenberg and skoi is the immediate ins to violence I agree with those Supreme Court rulings you should not be allowed to physically threaten somebody just like the Nazis if they in skog if they had said okay let's all go burn that house down that would have been illegal that form of speech but that's it's pretty clear where the line is I think most high school students Junior High School students could understand where the distinction
▶ 4:44:29is hope they take that it's not against the law to hate of course how could it be it's everybody everybody has hatred in their heart okay uh Miss subrian uh could you elabor at of what's going on in Canada I think most of our lifetime we think of Canada as almost being a cleaner version of the United States so we can maybe learn some lessons as to what could happen here from what's happened in Canada well what's happening in Canada right now is that there's a political crisis and that's the only reason why
▶ 4:44:59some of these very um uh pernicious pieces of legislation uh are just you know they've been Parliament is suspended so they've died as a result result but there's nothing to stop um a next government liberal government from bringing them back to life and what this suggests to me is it's indicative can you just give us examples of things you can't do in Canada today that we would be shocked if it happened here
▶ 4:45:30well they trying to for example I can I I can give you the example of the truckers protest in 2022 where peaceful protest was shut down by the Prime Minister by the government by invoking the emergencies act and and and protesters were driven out of the city they couldn't protest government overreach and it was government overreach that ultimately got them out and to make matters worse many of these people had
▶ 4:46:00their bank accounts Frozen um the Chinese social credit system had finally come to Canada was finally in the west and that's that's already happened and and since then there have been a series of attempts to pass through legislation um for as I mentioned in my remarks if you're CR if you're um praising fossil fuels for example um a private member's bill um suggested that people should go to prison for that um I mean it's extraordinary
▶ 4:46:30we have to be on the ball here in future elections so that when politicians go down that route they're done you know we'll find another Democrat we'll find another Republican somebody body who goes down that path it's just perceived to be Beyond The Pale no I'll tell you why this is important uh it's going back it goes back to that question from from that from the congressman you know why are we having these hearings and you need to have more of these hearings there's a stunning statistic from 2023 from the Pew
▶ 4:47:00survey 39% of Americans in 2018 supported restrictions on false information what they think is false information or violent content online that number has gone up to 55% that's extraordinary so these hearings are crucial to letting people know why it is vital to have to protect free speech and to defend the First Amendment and to go over in general some of the things were done by the last Administration thank
▶ 4:47:31you oh I'm sorry M has a you thank you for your Indulgence Mr chairman three quick UC requests one uh from the new Republic February 16 20 24 entitled Twitter files Matt tab says Elon Musk sent him unhinged messages number two from just security February 6 2025 connecting the dots Donald Trump's tightening grip on press freedom and finally um February 11 2025 CNN musk touts do
▶ 4:48:02transparency but downplays his conflicts of interest without objection gentleman from Missouri uh thank you Mr chairman well Mr chairman um some of our um Democrat colleagues have said that this hearing is a waste of time that this hearing is a dumb hearing you know Ronald Reagan said our freedoms are never more than one generation away from the extinction I cannot think of a more important topic for a hearing than this one right here to defend our first
▶ 4:48:32amendment uh Mr shellenberger I was uh I was very um glad to hear you mention that it used to be that the left and right were in agreement on the topic of free speech uh I'm not quite old enough to remember but in the 60s '70s the campus radicals called their movement the Free Speech movement boy the radical left does not seem to believe in free speech today and the Free Speech the the censorship that we've seen over the last few years uh by
▶ 4:49:02and large it's been censorship of of true information for all the words about here from the um from the Surgeon General confronting misinformation and a and from the also from the Surgeon General a community toolkit for addressing Health misinformation what was this misinformation the origin of the virus as a lab leak the inefficacy of the vaccine uh natural immunity
▶ 4:49:32complications of the vaccine like myocarditis but not limited to myocarditis the extraordinarily low morbidity and mortality of young healthy people especially children from the co the covid vaccine and therefore the really the lack of need to vaccinate those those kids and the lack of efficacy for Mass it was by and large true but it was censored aggressively and and you know the the two of you of course exposed exposed that in the Twitter files um in fact you know as
▶ 4:50:03as uh as uh Mark Zuckerberg told Joe Rogan what Elon Musk did with the Twitter files Jim Jordan and the house Judiciary Committee did for the rest of our industry um um Mr tahi I uh you you're an expert on the topic of of censorship um a Democrat earlier asked you the question is Banning books censorship and you said yes and I of course would agree are you aware of the Trump Administration trying to ban any books
▶ 4:50:33um no not particularly no I think you sometimes we have to make distinctions here would you consider in your opin opinion is keeping pornography and other sexually explicit material away from children is that censorship it's a completely different section of the law as far as I understand I would think so and in your opinion uh is a presidential Administration uh you know cutting funding to Rogue programs to promote transgender ideology when Congress never
▶ 4:51:03expressed that intent is that censorship no I don't consider that censorship maybe controversial but it's controversial indeed but uh but you know I I I don't view that as censorship um we you know again we see that um we see that that this this idea of of misinformation not only is it censoring misinformation not only is it contrary to the First Amendment but my background is I am a medical doctor in fact I
▶ 4:51:34my the name of my specialty is allergy and cl clinical Immunology I I'm a I'm an immunologist so to me the I and and we learned in like first year of medical school that a vac purpose of a vaccine is to mimic a natural infection without getting the patient sick or killing the patient and therefore inducing the immune response so so natural immunity made made sense to me um but uh you know Marty McCary testified um about
▶ 4:52:04sensorship during the covid uh pandemic that you know over 200 studies have shown natural immunity as at least as effective as vaccinated immunity and one of those 200 studies was his was his study but big Tech censored censored that as well as a lot of these other these other studies that's why when I when I heard Dr fouchi talk about the science the whole point science is
▶ 4:52:34that you don't label things misinformation because science isn't a a thing a scci science isn't like the Bible or the Quran or or the talmud the the science is a process you make observations you design an experiment based on those observations you test that hypothesis and then you you repeat the process so so to me it's unscientific it's against the First Amendment and a a violation of all of our core principles
▶ 4:53:04to censor but thanks to you three for what you've done to defend the First Amendment and really defend our Mo the most essential of our rights thank you thank you gentleman yields back gentleman from North Carolina is recognized thank you Mr chairman and uh I want to say to all of you on the panel thank you for your patience and your perseverance I was speaking at a program one time and uh a gentleman next to me looked at me and asked me if I would stay until The Bitter End I said son I Am The Bitter End and I feel like I'm in that role today
▶ 4:53:34Mr chairman so uh but anyway uh let me say this on July 19th 2021 one following directives from the Biden White House to suppress so-called misinformation about vaccines YouTube removed a video by Family research council's Tony Perkins that featured him interviewing Mary Holland who was serving as the general Council of Children's Health defense because the topic included the mention of the covid-19 vaccination program YouTube claimed that the new
▶ 4:54:04segment contained quote medical misinformation end quote however the whole topic of the interview was the lawsuit that Holland was bringing against the Washington DC city council regarding parental consent initially the appeals to restore the video were absolutely denied and ultimately the video was restored but it was three days after FRC brought it to the attention of the press I want to just pose the question to you Mr
▶ 4:54:34uh taibi at least the family research Council had a platform to fight back against this censorship during your investigative reporting for the Twitter files were you seeing a lot of examples of just ordinary Americans being censored Mr Congressman yes absolutely and that's that's the big difference with the system and the old system which was litigation based and you had a chance to present your case to a judge or a jury um you mentioned the family
▶ 4:55:05research count research Council our children's defense uh Health defense uh amusingly Joe Biden himself was uh censored because he T he talked so much about vaccines that Facebook's algor algorithm pushed him down accidentally which triggered our response from the White House but of course they can do something about it they could get on the phone and talk to Facebook and complain about it the ordinary person just can't do that they just wake up one morning and they find that they're they're off the internet um in some cases the first
▶ 4:55:35um cases that I looked at were basically mom and pop small media businesses like there was a site called Reverb press that was a down thee line Democratic site just woke up in morning was gone it was off the internet and they have no recourse um and that's the problem with the system there's just for wealthy people for famous people they can maybe do something about it but nobody else can so absent legislation like the first amendment accountability act what recourse is
▶ 4:56:05there for Americans you can try to find somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who maybe knows an executive that's basically it that's basically it well thank you Mr shellenberger let me ask you when Mr musk purchased Twitter which is now X he implemented the concept of community notes as an alternative to traditional factchecking on January 7th 2025 Mark Zuckerberg announced that meta would among other policy changes Implement an ex inspired Community
▶ 4:56:36notes model for its platform platform I know you've expressed Express support for this policy change and can you just take a few moments in the time I have left to explain why the community note system is preferable to traditional factchecking methods in terms of facilitating free and open dialogue online I mean Community notes is in the spirit of the First Amendment which is that truth is not something truth is something that emerges through disagreement and dialogue including through false information we get at what
▶ 4:57:06the true information is so Community notes is consistent with that it doesn't allow small groups of experts who think you know think they're experts to decide what the truth is in advance and then apply it into the world so look you don't really need Community notes you can have somebody can reply to an X poost and say this is wrong for these reasons and it can go viral but if you're going to have some kind of factchecking community notes is obviously the superior model and in fact I think the studies that have been done show that it does tend to be a Fairly reliable way to to get to the right to get to the
▶ 4:57:36truth excellent thank you very much and uh again thanks you to all you on the panel and Mr chairman I yield back my time thank you gentlemen gentleman yields back uh we're almost there uh chair now recognizes the ranking member for some closing remarks and then I'll close uh Mr chairman thank you for a fascinating hearing and uh all of our colleagues and the witnesses for hanging with us um you know I taught constitutional law in the First Amendment for 25 years Mr chairman and I used tell my students that the first amendment is like an apple
▶ 4:58:06and everybody wants to take one bite out of the Apple somebody does doesn't like left-wing speech take a bite somebody doesn't like right-wing speech take a bite somebody doesn't like Dei speech take a bite somebody doesn't like gender ideology speech take a bite and everybody takes just one bite out of the apple and at the end of it you know what's left nothing the Apple's gone it's been gobbled away which means that we've got a responsibility to defend free speech in its entirety now
▶ 4:58:36um the hearing we've had today has been fascinating in a lot of ways I do think that uh it ran rough shot over some basic constitutional distinctions that we do talk about in the first amendment like whether we're in a public forum or a non-public Forum a limited public forum a private space and all of that uh somewhat got stampeded in the political theatrics at different points um but one thing that struck me was um the fundamental
▶ 4:59:07agnosticism I hear from a lot of my colleagues about whether something called the truth even exists anymore and we are the products of an Enlightenment Constitution by people who really believed in the idea of facts an empirical investigation in fact our entire judicial system is based on that idea when people go and testify in court they swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth and then we have whole standards of evidence that are organized around whether or not
▶ 4:59:37the case has been made in criminal court have you've been able to prove the facts so intensely that it's beyond any reasonable doubt we're in civil court by a preponderance of the evidence and so our judicial system is based on the idea that there is the truth if you think about it Mr chairman our democratic system is based on the idea that there's the truth I heard people today and in other context saying well no we don't want to take down Russian disinformation uh on social media
▶ 5:00:07sites telling people to go and vote on when Wednesday November 9th if the election is Tuesday November 8th that's a violation of free speech as opposed to just a lie and a fraud perpetrated on the public but think about it we don't have democracy if we don't have a concept of truth and the facts because at the end of the day Donald Trump might not like it but there is an election and somebody wins and somebody loses and he couldn't handle the fact that he lost in 2020 for whatever reasons Financial
▶ 5:00:37ideological psychological emotional I don't know he lost by more than 7 million votes 306 to 232 in the election and the vexed politics and the divided polarized culture of our time all has to do with his inability to accept that and then his inciting a violent mob to come and attack our police officers and wound them and hospitalize them and tear the country apart but the reality is at the end of every election we decide the fact of who won
▶ 5:01:08and who lost in the inability to accept facts and the idea that there are truths is a very dangerous thing for American democracy or any other democracy and I'll just say finally Mr chairman there's an attack going on on the media I'm Afra you know I'm sorry that some of my colleagues didn't deal with the fact that yes president Trump has started to ban this media entity to punish these various newspaper groups to bring lawsuits for tens of millions of
▶ 5:01:38dollars on totally bogus fraudulent defamation charges and then forcing those media entities to settle with him as a form of financial and political tribute to this state what is this castros Cuba North Korea come on could we get together on a bipartisan basis to reject that do we really have to be so stuck in our partisan encampments that we can't see that as a Shakedown by the State against the people
▶ 5:02:08so let's stand up for real if we could in this Congress Mr chairman for the freedom of speech for the freedom of press for the right to petition government for a redress of grievances for the freedom of assembly for the free exercise of a religion and for no establishment of a religion let's at least converge around that and I thank you for your Indulgence and I yield back to you gentleman y back I would just say uh first of all thank you all for for being here to just in response briefly um I'm all for getting the facts and the truth and
▶ 5:02:38the way you get there is robust debate it's the first amendment there's a there's a Miss Crockett quoted scripture there's a great scripture I think it's in Proverbs it says the first to present his case seems right until another comes along and questions him it's called the the principle of cross-examination that's basically the First Amendment one person says one thing another person says something else and we can figure out the truth and the facts you're just getting one side and again from from left or right in a political context that's the problem I'm and I'm for the full Apple
▶ 5:03:09to use your what I know is I don't know Mr Aaron's background but I know these three people for defending the full Apple to use your metaphor again they've been harassed for doing it Mr taiii had the IRS knock on his door for goodness sake he had a Democrat member of Congress threatened to refer him to the justice department for for for prosecution for goodness sake Mr shellenberg is a one in man in Brazil for standing up for the truth for the facts
▶ 5:03:39in in fact I'm going to ask a question here miss submania I know what you did during the trucker blockade I know how you've testified I know my guess I don't know specifically my guess you've been harassed and targeted as well for your defense of the truth and the full Apple to stick with Mr raskins absolutely a few months after I uh wrote my story for the Free Press on the trucker protest um in June of 2022 I found myself uh in a study on a list of people on a list of PE of people where
▶ 5:04:09the the author a professor at a university in um in Calgary which is a city in the province of Alberta uh a federally funded study basically was accusing me of spreading Russian disinformation yeah that's extraordinary and I was featured on this list but uh tulsy gabard uh and a bunch of we know that whole that whole that whole yeah and so when I when I saw my name on this list I was absolutely horrified because
▶ 5:04:40that is the chilling effect of so here are here are three individuals three individuals who value the First Amendment and the truth so much that they're willing to face the attacks that theyve faced value the freedom of the press freedom of speech the rights we enjoy As Americans so I I want to I want to thank you all for being here you you you included Mr eron but I especially want to thank you three thank you because it's been for I know over the last several years what you've had to endure and your willingness to come back again and we're going to have you back again
▶ 5:05:10at some point because I don't think nine hearings is enough on the first amendment I think as Mr grman said we should do this every single week because if you lose the first amendment you lose the right to debate everything else falls apart just the way it works and so again thank you all for being here today our uh our the committee is adjourned e