Jim Jordan, GOPers put YouTube in their conspiratorial crosshairs

The right’s fact-free war on websites rages on.

House Republicans have spent months trying — and failing — to prove that the government has used social media companies to censor conservatives during the Trump and Biden administrations. And now House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan and the GOP have revealed another platform in their conspiratorial crosshairs: YouTube.

On Thursday, in a long thread on X, Jordan announced the “YouTube Files.” Similar to the “Twitter Files” and the lesser-known “Facebook Files,” Jordan’s latest effort involves cherry-picked emails to suggest that the Biden White House had coerced the Google-owned platform into removing content related to Covid-19.

But the emails he provides don’t prove this. They just show that Google and YouTube officials were engaged with the Biden administration at a time when the White House was rightly concerned about the spread of Covid misinformation.

Jordan has previously referred to such exchanges as “censorship by proxy,” falsely claiming that companies become compelled to act on behalf of the federal government. In reality, many of the documents provided by the Ohio Republican have shown that social media employees have engaged in tough internal debates about content moderation.

Recommended

Maddowblog

GOP’s Ron Johnson brings his conspiratorial focus to the Jeffrey Epstein files

Steve Benen

Latest

Jim Jordan targets Spotify in quest to undermine fight against misinformation

Ja’han Jones

Nonetheless, Jordan’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government held a hearing Thursday to discuss censorship. Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., highlighted conservatives’ hypocrisy on the issue during an exchange with former Trump administration official (and friend of “The ReidOut”) Olivia Troye.

Connolly asked her about Trump’s reported interest in having the U.S. military violently crack down on civil rights protesters in 2020. Troye said it was true.

It seems that if Republicans were truly concerned about censorship, they’d turn their fury toward their dear leader, who furthermore has repeatedly vowed to target the free press if he retakes the White House.