The House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol Hill attack has subpoenaed Alphabet, Meta, Twitter, and Reddit and demanded they hand over internal documents concerning the spread of misinformation, efforts to overturn or influence the 2020 election, and domestic violent extremism in the lead-up to last year’s insurrection.
The House select committee originally demanded the companies supply these sensitive documents back in August, but discussions have stalled, forcing the panel to issue subpoenas.
“Two key questions for the Select Committee are how the spread of misinformation and violent extremism contributed to the violent attack on our democracy, and what steps—if any—social media companies took to prevent their platforms from being breeding grounds for radicalizing people to violence,” Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said in the announcement.
The information promises to give US lawmakers an inside look at how the major social media providers responded to events leading up to the Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol and the ensuing fallout. Twitter most famously banned former President Trump while Facebook and Google’s YouTube settled on a suspension.
The same internal documents could also expose problems and further embarrass the platforms. However, according to the House committee, the companies—including Facebook’s Meta and YouTube’s Alphabet—have refused to fully comply.
“It’s disappointing that after months of engagement, we still do not have the documents and information necessary to answer those basic questions,” Thompson said.
The letters the House committee sent to the four major social platforms also includes examples of internal records US lawmakers are hoping to uncover. They include documents concerning YouTube’s decision to suspend Trump’s account and details on why Facebook allegedly disbanded a Civic Integrity team focused on preventing election misinformation weeks before the Capitol attack.
“Twitter has not produced important documents relating to warnings it received regarding the use of the platform to plan or incite violence on January 6th,” the House committee wrote to the social media company. “In addition, Twitter has failed to fully comply or even commit to a timeline for complying with the Select Committee’s request for internal company analyses of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation relating to the 2020 election.”
Twitter declined to comment on the subpoena. The remaining two companies, Alphabet and Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Meanwhile, Reddit said: “We received the subpoena and will continue to work with the committee on their requests.”
