Zuckerberg: House to Consider Contempt of Congress Recommendation
Before the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee could consider a resolution recommending that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg be held in contempt of Congress, Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said the vote was on hold because Meta committed to cooperate with the committee's investigation.
Facts
- Before the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee could consider a resolution recommending that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg be held in contempt of Congress, Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) Thursday said the vote was on hold because Meta committed to cooperate with the committee's investigation.1
- The committee has asked Facebook to turn over internal communications similar to those it received from Twitter that allegedly showed the government pressuring the company to censor certain speech.2
- Jordan subpoenaed top executives from Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple in February as part of Republicans’ investigations into alleged suppression of conservative speech. Until now, Zuckerberg “willfully refused” to comply with the subpoena as characterized by Jordan.3
- A Meta spokesman responded to the committee's potential contempt charge against Zuckerberg by saying the company has operated in good faith and delivered 53K pages of documents — both internal and external — to the Judiciary Committee.4
- If found in contempt, Zuckerberg could face jail time and a fine of up to $100K.5
Sources: 1Deadline, 2NBC, 3Associated Press, 4FOX News, and 5Forbes.
Narratives
- Republican narrative, as provided by The Post Millenial. While Big Tech thinks it’s above the law and will be protected by Democrats, Republicans like Jordan are holding them to account. Meta and the other social media platforms must answer for censoring conservatives, so it might as well cooperate with the probe instead of being held in contempt.
- Democratic narrative, as provided by Politico. This is all theatrics. Meta has done what’s been asked of it and cooperated as much as the other tech firms. But Jordan knows that targeting Zuckerberg will earn him headlines, while also pleasing Elon Musk — the owner of Meta-rival X, formerly Twitter. Musk has become an ally to Republicans, and Zuckerberg recently launched a competitor to X, so this could be a political price he has to pay.
