Shut Your App: How Uncle Sam Jawboned Big Tech Into Silencing Americans

The hearing will examine how government agencies have used tactics to pressure Big Tech into censoring speech protected by the First Amendment, a practice known as “jawboning.”

The hearing will expand upon the themes in Sen. Cruz’s recently released report on a censorship campaign conducted in secret by the Biden administration’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The report demonstrates that the agency infringed on the First Amendment by pressuring social media companies to censor Americans that held views different than the Biden administration. CISA faced little pushback from the tech industry or the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, enabling the agency to avoid accountability. Sen. Cruz warns that CISA’s unchecked censorship serves as a cautionary tale for future policy related to artificial intelligence, a new medium to share and receive information, and one that progressives across the world are already trying to control. The hearing will explore legislative solutions to safeguard Americans from jawboning.

Witnesses

• Mr. Eugene Volokh, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University and Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, University of California, Los Angeles
• Mr. Alex Berenson, Independent Journalist and Author
• Mr. Sean Davis, Chief Executive Officer, The Federalist