Condemning Twitter's partisan censorship of President Donald J. Trump.

Bill: 116-hres-984
Sponsor: full_name: Rep. Lamborn, Doug [R-CO-5]
Introduced: 2020-05-28
Policy area: Science, Technology, Communications
Subjects: First Amendment rights

Internet and video services

Internet, web applications, social media

Presidents and presidential powers, Vice Presidents
Latest action: action_date: 2020-05-28
text: Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Summaries:
action_date: 2020-05-28
action_desc: Introduced in House
text: <p>This resolution condemns Twitter's censorship of President Donald Trump, disapproves of Twitter's content moderation, and demands that Twitter protect the First Amendment rights of all Americans.</p>

tv_txt: IV 116th CONGRESS 2d Session H. RES. 984 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES May 28, 2020 Mr. Lamborn (for himself, Mr. Collins of Georgia , Mr. Biggs , and Mr. Banks ) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce RESOLUTION Condemning Twitter’s partisan censorship of President Donald J. Trump.

Whereas the United States is founded upon the free exchange of ideas and the ability of all Americans to speak freely; Whereas there have been instances of apparent leftwing bias in Twitter and other California technology companies; Whereas there has been a demonstrated effort by Twitter to obstruct and interfere with President Trump’s ability to get his message through to the American people; Whereas Twitter has followed the lead of some in the biased news media and deemed themselves fact checkers as a smokescreen to lend its political tactics some false credibility; Whereas Twitter had previously agreed to provide a public social media platform free of censorship, but has not upheld its commitment; Whereas a Twitter staffer deactivated the Twitter account of the President of the United States in 2017 without a legitimate reason; Whereas a politically motivated Twitter staffer erroneously claimed that tweets from the President of the United States on May 27, 2020, contained misleading information; Whereas Twitter has improperly applied its new civic integrity policy , which protects the free speech of its users; Whereas Twitter’s new civic integrity policy standard has not been applied consistently across the Twitter platform; Whereas Twitter has continued its historic lack of transparency in its implementation of the civic integrity policy; Whereas the leader of Facebook, another large social media platform, publicly noted that privately owned social media platforms should not act as arbiter[s] of truth ; Whereas, unimpeded by censorship, the President’s political challengers continue to use Twitter to promote their political platform and encourage voter participation while Twitter singles out the President’s account; Whereas the President has more than 80 million Twitter followers; and Whereas the President uses his Twitter account to communicate with the American public and bypass the often biased and discriminating reporting of the many in the news media: Now, therefore, be it

That the House of Representatives— (1) unequivocally condemns Twitter’s biased and unwarranted censorship of the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump; (2) strongly disapproves of Twitter’s partisan and politically motivated content moderation; and (3) demands that Twitter end its discriminatory practices and consistently protect the First Amendment rights of all Americans, including the President of the United States.