Democrats and Republicans clashed during a hearing Thursday over the legitimacy of what is known as the "Twitter Files," a series of internal documents from the social media platform released by journalists authorized by owner Elon Musk that Republicans say illustrate censorship of conservative speech.
The Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government held a hearing on Thursday with Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi, two of the journalists granted access to the files. The hearing addressed the legitimacy of their claims regarding government and Big Tech efforts to censor content. Democrats, though, spent most of the hearing attempting to delegitimize the two writers for their work.
Ranking member Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) called Taibbi and Shellenberger "two of Elon Musk's public scribes" in her opening statement, then alleged that they "release[d] cherry-picked, out-of-context emails and screenshots designed to promote his chosen narrative, Elon Musk's chosen narrative, that is now being parroted by the Republicans." She also claimed that the two reporters' actions threatened others, a statement that was nearly struck from the record.
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Other Democrats argued that the pair had used select evidence to imply that Twitter had only discriminated against conservatives. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) asked both writers to confirm if they found evidence that the Trump administration had requested Twitter to take down tweets. Both said no, only for Connolly to note that Trump had asked Twitter to take down offensive tweets by comedian Kathy Griffin.
Taibbi defended his work, saying that his reporting on the Twitter Files was a bigger deal than his previous reporting on the 2008 financial crisis. Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) also defended the pair's work by noting they were both Democrats, arguing that their partisan affiliation meant they could not be right-wing "grifters" as alleged by liberal critics.
The first weaponization subcommittee hearing set the stage for a two-year investigation into the federal government's attitude toward free speech, especially regarding conservatives. Twitter will be a significant target as House Republicans seek to demonstrate that intelligence agencies improperly directed social media coverage of political events.
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Shellenberger and Taibbi published multiple entries in the Twitter Files, including reports dealing with the company's response to the Jan. 6 riots and the subsequent banning of former President Donald Trump.