House panel mulling Zuckerberg contempt vote this week

The GOP-led House Judiciary Committee may vote this week to hold Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt, a committee spokesperson said Monday, a move that would further escalate House Republicans’ attack on the social media giant.

Republicans on the Judiciary panel have accused the company of failing to cooperate with its probe of the tech giant’s content moderation practices. A committee spokesperson confirmed the panel is eyeing a Thursday vote.

The panel is investigating how tech companies communicate with the federal government, and the potential vote follows a series of hearings on the same topic from the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

A spokesperson for Meta, the parent company of Facebook, pushed back on the committee’s allegations that it has not cooperated with the investigation, which House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) launched in February. 

In response to the possible Thursday vote, the Meta spokesperson sent The Hill the same statement it shared last week, when news of the committee considering a vote was first reported by Fox Business. 

“We have shared over 50,000 pages of documents in response to the committee’s request and have made nearly a dozen current and former employees available to discuss external and internal issues. We look forward to continuing to work with the committee moving forward,” the spokesperson said. 

Punchbowl News first reported Monday’s news on the potential vote later this week.

Russell Dye, a spokesperson for Jordan, said Facebook has “critical information that it has not turned over to the committee regarding federal government efforts to censor speech online and how Facebook responded to those efforts. 

“It is imperative the committee get these materials and we will take whatever actions necessary to facilitate that end,” Dye added. 

In February, Jordan subpoenaed executives from Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft about their communications with the federal government. 

Since then, the select weaponization subcommittee has held hearings, including one last week featuring long-shot Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., about how companies communicate with the government. 

Democrats have slammed the GOP’s probe, noting that it is within companies’ First Amendment protections to moderate content as they see fit with their policies. At the same time, Democrats have broadly accused tech giants of not taking down enough content spreading misinformation and hate speech that Democrats say breaks tech platforms’ policies.