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

IV 116TH CONGRESS 2D SESSION H. RES. 984 Condemning Twitter’s partisan censorship of President Donald J. Trump. 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 credi- bility; VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:16 May 29, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR984.IH HR984 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 2 •HRES 984 IH 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 le- gitimate reason; Whereas a politically motivated Twitter staffer erroneously claimed that tweets from the President of the United States on May 27, 2020, contained ‘‘misleading’’ infor- mation; Whereas Twitter has improperly applied its new ‘‘civic integ- rity 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 trans- parency 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 po- litical platform and encourage voter participation while Twitter singles out the President’s account; Whereas the President has more than 80 million Twitter fol- lowers; and Whereas the President uses his Twitter account to commu- nicate with the American public and bypass the often bi- ased and discriminating reporting of the many in the news media: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 1 VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:16 May 29, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\HR984.IH HR984 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 3 •HRES 984 IH (1) unequivocally condemns Twitter’s biased 1 and unwarranted censorship of the President of the 2 United States, Donald J. Trump; 3 (2) strongly disapproves of Twitter’s partisan 4 and politically motivated content moderation; and 5 (3) demands that Twitter end its discriminatory 6 practices and consistently protect the First Amend- 7 ment rights of all Americans, including the Presi- 8 dent of the United States. 9 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:16 May 29, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\HR984.IH HR984 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS