Oct. 23, 2025, 5:38 p.m.
Next week, executives from Google and Meta will testify at another Senate Commerce Committee hearing investigating Biden administration efforts pressuring social media companies to take down COVID-19 and election misinformation, a method known as jawboning.
While the Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration last year in a lawsuit claiming the contact was unlawful, Republicans in both chambers have continued their own jawboning investigations.
“The First Amendment is a powerful weapon that protects against government’s efforts to silence its own citizens,” Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz said in a press release announcing the hearing. “However, we have seen the government trample on this right through third parties, joining with Big Tech to censor Americans, often under the guise of safety or national security. In a free society, the people govern by speaking freely and debating openly without government retaliation.”
Meanwhile, as congressional Republicans accuse the Biden administration of censorship, Attorney General Pam Bondi has been making public demands that big tech take down apps and pages focused on tracking Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents carrying out the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
“Obviously it does seem hypocritical,” said Katie Fallow, deputy litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute. “It’s within the rights under the First Amendment for [the government] to use the bully pulpit to say, ‘we think this is bad, you shouldn’t be carrying this kind of content.’ However, when that crosses the line into coercion or threats, that’s what violates the First Amendment.”
In early October, Apple removed ICEBlock, an app that allowed users to report ICE activity, after a demand from the Justice Department, Bondi told Fox News.
“We reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store—and Apple did so,” Bondi said in a statement. “ICEBlock is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs, and violence against law enforcement is an intolerable red line that cannot be crossed.”
Though ICEBlock never appeared on the Google Play store, the company announced it had removed similar apps. Google representatives told CNBC they were not contacted by the Justice Department when they chose to remove the apps.
Later in the month, Facebook removed a page that tracked ICE activity in Chicago, with Bondi once again taking credit.
“Today following outreach from @thejusticedept, Facebook removed a large group page that was being used to dox and target @ICEgov agents in Chicago,” the attorney general said in a social media post.
In an online statement, the operators of ICEBlock said their app was never used to incite violence against ICE.
“Apple has claimed they received information from law enforcement that ICEBlock served to harm law enforcement officers. This is patently false,” the statement said. “This is protected speech under the first amendment of the United States Constitution.”
While some details remain unknown, experts on the First Amendment said the ICE-tracking apps and pages appear to be constitutionally protected, and that Bondi’s efforts to remove them seem like a clear example of government overreach.
“Communicating about the presence of law enforcement [or] observing the activities of government is a First Amendment-protected activity,” said Kate Ruane, director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology. “We do not know enough about the attorney general’s interactions with the companies to know whether it rose to the level of unconstitutional coercion. What we do know is that the Department of Justice asked for the removal of constitutionally protected speech, and that removal happened.”
The fact that Bondi said she was “demanding” Apple take down the app was particularly troublesome to free-speech experts.
It was “inappropriate for her to even ask, and beyond the pale, constitutionally, for her to demand,” said Cathy Gellis, an internet lawyer in the San Francisco Bay area.
Despite her actions, Republican lawmakers who were quick to blast Biden’s pressure on big tech have largely remained silent.
“I’m surprised that more of my colleagues are not more concerned about free-speech impacts, since they have been very vocal about it in the past,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal said. The Connecticut Democrat is working with House Democrats to track complaints about ICE in Los Angeles.
In 2025, Louisiana and Missouri—along with five social media users—sued the Biden administration over claims it pressured social media companies to censor their content on COVID-19 and election misinformation.
The case ultimately made its way to the Supreme Court, which rejected the claim in a 6-3 ruling. The high court found the plaintiffs could not prove a link between the Biden administration’s contact with social media companies and the content-moderation policies implemented by the tech companies, nor could they demonstrate a risk of future censorship.
“If the accusations against the Biden administration had been accurate, then that would have presented a constitutional problem. The issue there is that the facts don’t support that conclusion,” Gellis said. “You are allowed to talk to your government; your government is allowed to talk to you. You need to have that connection between the government and the people it governs in order for democracy to work.”
Undaunted by the Supreme Court ruling and the facts found in the case, Republicans—who control both the House and Senate—are proceeding with investigations into the Biden administration’s contact with social media companies, while so far ignoring the Trump administration’s contacts with big tech about content moderation.
“Bondi is actually saying—even if it’s sort of with a wink and a nod, as opposed to direct—there’s clearly a ‘you moderate this way, or there will be consequences,’” Gellis said. “Now you’ve got the exact same jawboning problem that everybody was complaining about last year.”
Senate Commerce ranking member Maria Cantwell told National Journal she wasn’t sure if she’d bring up Bondi in the upcoming hearing. But Blumenthal, who does not sit on the committee, said he was certain someone would make the case that Trump administration officials are being hypocritical.
“I think inevitably it will be raised,” he said. “It should be.”
Savannah Behrmann contributed to this article.
