The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday subpoenaed Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube, according to documents viewed by Semafor — the latest escalation of Republican attempts to investigate alleged bias in the tech industry.
The subpoena sent by Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, seeks communications from or regarding the executive branch and stems from conservatives’ long-running concerns that the Biden administration “coerced or colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor lawful speech.”
“To develop effective legislation, such as the possible enactment of new statutory limits on the executive branch’s ability to work with Big Tech to restrict the circulation of content and deplatform users, the Committee must first understand” the scope of the Biden administration’s contacts with tech companies on the issue, Jordan wrote to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai on Thursday.
Alphabet, which has a March 28th to respond to the subpoena, did not immediately return a request for comment.
The latest Jordan subpoena comes a week after the Judiciary panel subpoenaed eight major tech companies for details of their communications with foreign companies.
It also follows the recent launch of a public inquiry by the Federal Trade Commission into complaints from users who felt tech platforms had censored them, or whose access may have been restricted for partisan reasons.
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