• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, July 23, 2024

A Democratic House member is calling for an investigation into reports that X is preventing some users from following Vice-President Kamala Harris's presidential campaign account, @KamalaHQ.

“Regardless of political ideology, Americans have a protected interest in receiving Vice President Harris’ communications regarding her candidacy,” Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-New York) said in a letter sent Tuesday to Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). “Vice President Harris, in turn, has a right to communicate with the American people as she runs for the highest office in the country,” Nadler added.

Nadler's letter comes just days after President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 election and endorsed Harris for president. Since then, several X (formerly Twitter) users reported that they received “limit reached” error messages when they tried to follow @KamalaHQ.

Those users' experience “suggests that X may be intentionally throttling or blocking Vice President Harris’ ability to communicate with potential voters,” Nadler writes.

He adds: “If true, such action would amount to egregious censorship based on political and viewpoint discrimination -- issues that this committee clearly has taken very seriously.”

It's not clear whether X -- whose owner, Elon Musk, publicly endorsed former President Donald Trump -- intentionally blocked access to the account. The company hasn't responded to MediaPost's inquiries, except to give its standard response: “Busy now, please check back later.”

In the past, X reportedly throttled links to news sites and other social media platforms.

Judges across the country have repeatedly ruled that social media platforms have a First Amendment right to wield control over material on their platform. While Texas and Florida recently passed laws that would have restricted tech platforms from suppressing some speech by users, courts blocked both measures as likely unconstitutional.

Nadler notes in his letter that Jordan previously criticized tech companies for allegedly suppressing speech by conservatives.

“Given your long track record of fighting against political discrimination on the platform 'town squares' of American discourse, I trust that you will join me in requesting additional information from X regarding this apparent censorship of a candidate for President of the United States,” Nadler writes.

He is calling for the committee to demand information from X, including data about how many users were unable to follow @KamalaHQ since July 21, and whether X owner Elon Musk was personally involved in any effort to throttle the account.