House committee investigating Jan. 6 Subpoenas YouTube, Meta, Reddit and Twitter
House committee investigating Jan. 6 Subpoenas YouTube, Meta, Reddit and Twitter
Thursday, the House committee overseeing the investigation into the January 6 uprising at the United States Capitol issued subpoenas to four major technology companies.
Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), chairman of the select committee's January 6 meeting, sent letters to YouTube parent company Alphabet, Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta, Reddit, and Twitter requesting additional information on how those platforms were used to organize the day's violent events.
The committee charged each company with hosting content related to plotting an attack on the United States Capitol. "Meta platforms were reportedly used to spread messages of hatred, violence, and incitement; to disseminate misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories surrounding the election; and to coordinate or attempt to coordinate the Stop the Steal movement," the committee stated, noting that it believes Facebook's since-disbanded Civic Integrity team may have held relevant information.
As TechCrunch previously reported, Facebook was a major hub of the Stop the Steal movement due to the platform's failure to control the spread of content contesting the legitimacy of the 2020 US presidential election results. Also, Facebook was previously the organizing platform of choice for a number of extremist and militia-like organizations that were later implicated in the Capitol attack, including the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters.
The committee's complaint to Reddit appears to be directed at r/The Donald, a well-known subreddit that migrated to its own domain in late January 2020 after being banned for hate speech. Likewise, the committee noted that YouTube was used to livestream the events and that Twitter users "reportedly used the platform to communicate about the assault's planning and execution."
The committee initially requested relevant records from 15 different platforms in August of last year, though that round of letters also included requests for information from extremist-friendly websites such as 4chan, 8kun, Gab, Parler, and theDonald.win, as well as more traditional social media platforms such as Snapchat, Twitch, and TikTok.
The committee is re-visiting its previous demands on the four major social media platforms after they failed to provide sufficient detail "despite repeated and specific requests," this time with a January 27 deadline.
