EDITORIAL: Censorship, the Biden administration, and Big Tech
Reps. Jim Jordan and Darrell Issa — along with all of the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee — deserve our thanks for preserving the fundamental right to free speech.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) has done critical work exposing the Biden administration’s censorship efforts through his leadership on the House Judiciary Committee. His 2024 report, “The Censorship Industrial Complex“ along with the Twitter Files, revealed how White House officials, including Rob Flaherty, pressured tech companies to censor conservatives who were telling the truth about COVID hysteria.
While liberals have gone hysterical over ABC’s decision to temporarily suspend Jimmy Kimmel, the truth is that the COVID-19 era marked the most severe wave of censorship in American history. Skeptics of lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and lab-leak theories — doctors, parents, and ordinary citizens — were systematically targeted as purveyors of “misinformation.”
Posts and accounts were throttled or removed, often at the direct urging of Biden administration officials, even when the content didn’t violate platform rules. One of the Washington Reporter’s own staffers saw Meta censor a post about a U.S. Senator pointing out the likely origins of COVID. This unprecedented clampdown stifled open debate, eroded public trust, and fueled division, all while showing how far government officials were willing to go to control the narrative.
Following the Judiciary Committee’s findings, Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) — long one of the GOP’s most effective members — told the Reporter that “Democrats want the country to forget Biden was ever president, but we remember all four failed years and have the receipts to prove it.”
“Next time a progressive pretends to be for free speech,” Issa cautioned, “show them our report and remind them of the countless times the left demanded conservatives be censored, silenced, and de-platformed.”
The best way to prevent this from happening again is to address the root cause: Democratic government officials who pressured private companies to censor. The silver lining to Congressman Jordan’s investigation and other reveals like the Twitter files show that tech platforms often resisted Democratic demands. Even Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of site integrity who was fired and is no friend of conservatives, often pushed back on demands from the Biden administration to censor conservatives.
Google, per a 2025 statement to Jordan’s committee, also pushed back on some requests, citing First Amendment concerns. Yes, there are troubling examples of tech censorship without pressure, like when Amazon refused to sell books on the dangers of transgender surgeries for children. Compliance wasn’t universal, and platforms sometimes yielded to pressure or regulatory threats. This mixed record shows tech firms deserve oversight, but the primary driver was liberal government officials.
Here’s why this distinction matters. While great friends of the Washington Reporter, like Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), rightly criticize Google and others for content decisions, the core problem is government officials exploiting their authority and that’s what must be addressed so this never happens again. It’s Tony Fauci, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and their crew of incompetents who thought that if they censored grandma’s post about masks, the number of COVID infections would decline.
Solutions that expand government power will create a bigger opportunity for President AOC or Gavin Newsom to use their authority to force tech to censor everything the left considers misinformation which — let’s face it — is pretty much every argument that points out the Democrats’ policies don’t work.
Our solutions must target those officials, including by creating more personal liability for public officials who violate the First Amendment to deter future abuses.
We encourage the great Congressman Jim Jordan, along with Congressman Darrell Issa and the rest of the Judiciary Committee, to continue their great work to make sure this censorship never happens again.