House Judiciary Committee to vote on whether to cite Zuckerberg in contempt of Congress
Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives at federal court in San Jose, California, Dec. 20, 2022.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The House Judiciary Committee is set to vote Thursday on whether to cite Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt of Congress for what it says is a failure to provide adequate documents in connection with an earlier subpoena in the panel’s online censorship investigation.
Meta and Zuckerberg “have willfully refused to comply in full with a congressional subpoena,” that sought to collect documents on the company’s communications with the Biden administration and its content moderation decisions, the committee alleged in its contempt report. The committee called Meta’s compliance with the subpoena “woefully inadequate.”
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If the committee votes to cite Zuckerberg in contempt, the resolution will then need to pass the House floor. A criminal contempt case, as the committee suggests, could be referred to the Justice Department, which could decide whether to take up the case.
The initial subpoena was part of an investigation into Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, alongside Meta, to “understand how and to what extent the Executive Branch coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech,” Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote when he issued the orders to turn over documents in February.
Since then, Jordan has expanded the inquiry into Meta to include its new Twitter competitor Threads. Jordan wrote that he considered content moderation documents about Threads to be subject to the earlier subpoena.
“Although directly responsive to the Committee’s subpoena, Meta has failed to produce nearly all of the relevant documents internal to the company,” the contempt report says. “To date, Meta has produced only documents between Meta and external entities and a small subset of relevant internal documents. The Committee has a particular need for Meta’s internal documents, which would shed light on how Meta understood, evaluated, and responded to the Executive Branch’s requests or directives to censor content, as well as Meta’s decision-making process to censor viewpoints in the modern town square.”
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement that Meta has “operated in good faith” with the committee’s broad requests.
“To date we have delivered over 53,000 pages of documents — both internal and external — and have made nearly a dozen current and former employees available to discuss external and internal matters, including some scheduled this very week,” Stone wrote. “Meta will continue to comply, as we have thus far, with good faith requests from the committee.”
But the contempt report alleges that since the subpoena was issued, on Feb. 15, “Meta has produced communications between Meta and external entities and fewer than 40 pages of internal documents. Despite clear instructions in the Committee’s subpoena and repeated requests from Committee staff, Meta has thus far failed to produce nearly all of the requested internal communications related to its Executive Branch interactions.”
“The Committee negotiated extensively, offering significant accommodations, to try to reach an agreement,” the report continues, but Meta rejected those proposals and “offered a paltry production of internal documents on July 24.”
WATCH: The messy business of content moderation on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks during a roundtable on “Antifa,” an anti-fascist movement he designated a domestic “terrorist organization” via executive order on September 22, at the White House in Washington, D.C., Oct. 8, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Meta removed a Facebook group page on Tuesday that was allegedly used to “dox and target” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Chicago after being contacted by the Department of Justice.
Attorney General Pam Bondi revealed the Facebook takedown in an X post, and said that the DOJ “will continue engaging tech companies to eliminate platforms where radicals can incite imminent violence against federal law enforcement.”
A Meta spokesperson confirmed that the tech giant removed the Facebook group page, but declined to comment about its size and the specific details that warranted its removal.
“This Group was removed for violating our policies against coordinated harm,” the Meta spokesperson said in a statement that also referred to the company’s policies pertaining to “Coordinating Harm and Promoting Crime.”
Meta’s removal of the Facebook group page follows similar moves from rivals like Apple and Google, which have recently removed apps that could be used to anonymously report sightings of ICE agents and other law enforcement.
Apple took down the ICEBlock app nearly two weeks ago following pressure from Bondi, who said at the time that the app was “designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs.”
Apple said at the time in a statement that it removed the ICEBlock app based on information provided by law enforcement about alleged “safety risks.”
Google, which did not maintain the ICEBlock app on its app store, said in October that while the DOJ never contacted the search giant, the company removed “similar apps for violations of our policies.”
ICEBlock creator Joshua Aaron criticized both Apple and the White House in an interview with CNBC, and compared his app to others like Waze, which let drivers report when they see law enforcement officers in order to avoid getting ticketed for speeding.
“This is about our fundamental constitutional rights in this country being stripped away by this administration, and the powers that be who are capitulating to their requests,” Aaron said.
WATCH: Roth Capital Partners’ Rohit Kularni on OpenAI’s Sora.
OpenAI’s EMEA startups head Laura Modiano spoke at the Sifted Summit on Wednesday, 8 October.
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
OpenAI on Tuesday announced a council of eight experts who will advise the company and provide insight into how artificial intelligence could affect users’ mental health, emotions and motivation.
The group, which is called the Expert Council on Well-Being and AI, will initially guide OpenAI’s work on its chatbot ChatGPT and its short-form video app Sora, the company said. Through check-ins and recurring meetings, OpenAI said the council will help it define what healthy AI interactions look like.
OpenAI has been expanding its safety controls in recent months as the company has faced mounting scrutiny over how it protects users, particularly minors.
In September, the Federal Trade Commission launched an inquiry into several tech companies, including OpenAI, over how chatbots like ChatGPT could negatively affect children and teenagers. OpenAI is also embroiled in a wrongful death lawsuit from a family who blames ChatGPT for their teenage son’s death by suicide.
The company is building an age prediction system that will automatically apply teen-appropriate settings for users under 18, and it launched a series of parental controls late last month. Parents can now get notified if their child is showing signs of acute distress, for instance.
OpenAI said it began informally consulting with members of its new expert council as it was building its parental controls. The company brought on additional experts in psychiatry. psychology and human-computer interaction as it formalized the council, which officially launched with an in-person session last week.
In addition to its expert council, OpenAI said it is also working with researchers and mental health clinicians within the Global Physician Network who will help test ChatGPT and establish company policies.
Here are the members of OpenAI’s Expert Council on Well-Being and AI:
- Andrew Przybylski, a professor of human behavior and technology at the University of Oxford.
- David Bickham, a research scientist in the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital.
- David Mohr, the director of Northwestern University’s Center for Behavioral Intervention Technologies.
- Mathilde Cerioli, the chief scientist at Everyone.AI, a nonprofit that explores the risks and benefits of AI for children.
- Munmun De Choudhury, a professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing.
- Dr. Robert Ross, a pediatrician by training and the former CEO of The California Endowment, a nonprofit that aims to expand access to affordable health care.
- Dr. Sara Johansen, a clinical assistant professor at Stanford University who founded its Digital Mental Health Clinic.
- Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, a professor of psychology at Hunter College.
If you are having suicidal thoughts or are in distress, contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for support and assistance from a trained counselor
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