GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio is spearheading a House Judiciary Committee investigation into the E.U. and Biden administration, to determine if they pushed Spotify to censor free speech.
In a letter to Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, Jordan criticized laws from the E.U. and U.K. requiring social media sites — even those based in the United States — to censor “disinformation” and “harmful content” or face hefty fines.
“These foreign laws, regulations, and judicial orders may limit or restrict Americans’ access to constitutionally protected speech in the United States. Indeed, that appears to be their very purpose,” Jordan wrote, in a copy of the letter obtained by The New York Post earlier this week.
“More relevantly, it’s the pressure we are seeing the E.U. put on companies to censor more,” a source familiar with the probe told the outlet.
The committee ordered Spotify to “preserve documents and all contact with foreign governments, as well as individuals linked to the White House, and provide this information to the House by Aug. 12.”
“This impulse to censor speech, however, is not confined to foreign governments,” the letter added. “The committee’s prior investigative efforts showed that the Biden-Harris Administration repeatedly pressured Big Tech to censor Americans’ protected speech.”
A Spotify representative told the New York Post, “We’ve received the letter and will respond accordingly.”
This isn’t the first time Spotify has been at the center of controversy regarding censorship. During the pandemic, podcaster Joe Rogan made comments related to COVID-19, specifically that Ivermectin was effective in curing the disease. This triggered a firestorm.
Spotify was accused by critics of spreading “misinformation,” and the company said it would post advisories on certain coronavirus content going forward.
They also banned Steve Bannon’s show “War Room” in 2020, after he made calls for Trump to bring down Dr. Anthony Fauci and former FBI Director Christopher Wray, by putting their “heads on pikes.” He was reinstated in June, Breitbart reported.
The Spotify changes were triggered by a group of scientists — and people in the medical industry — signing onto a letter telling Spotify to “take action against mass-misinformation events.”
The Biden administration was supportive of this move at the time — and even called for more social media regulation.
Despite being based in Europe, Spotify is a worldwide company that is wildly popular in the U.S.
If they begin falling in line with foreign censorship laws, those regulations could eventually be applied to American users.
In the letter, Jordan reportedly referenced an incident from August 2024, “when Thierry Breton, who at the time was responsible for enforcing E.U. content laws, warned X and its owner Elon Musk that it may need to censor content to prevent ‘potential spillovers in the E.U.”
This can’t be allowed to happen. America cannot — and will not — live under unjust laws that silence free speech.
An investigation is a good start, but actually doing something with the findings to achieve accountability is what the public really wants.
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