The House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on Diamond and Silk's allegations that Facebook is censoring them.
The fact that Republicans deemed Diamond and Silk's complaints about the organic reach on their posts worth a hearing instead of looking into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign drew the ire of the committee's ranking Democrat, Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler, who represents Manhattan. He opened the hearing by spitting pure fire at the Republicans.
"Priorities matter, Mr. Chairman. Over the course of the past year the majority has refused to hold hearings or conduct oversight of any kind of any subject related to social media," he said. "Time and again, House Republicans have attempted to turn the committee's attention away from these issues, either ignoring or attempting to distract from the serious conversations we should be having."
Nadler detailed the many serious issues he's wanted to look into—and which he was blocked or rebuffed from examining.
"House Republicans have no time for substantive oversight of the Trump administration, or election security, or privacy policy, or even a discussion of the wisdom of regulating social media platforms," he said. "But they have made time for Diamond and Silk. They have prioritized this spectacle."
Nadler pointed out that based on a single email, which Mark Zuckerberg has said was sent in error, Diamond and Silk, Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, say that they are being censored by Facebook.
Nadler pointed out that they have a large platform to claim this censorship is happening—namely, Facebook, where their post claiming censorship has 100,000 likes and 60,000 shares.
He also pointed out that Diamond and Silk had more engagement in March 2018 than they did in March 2017.
"The central thesis of this hearing doesn't hold up under even the most basic scrutiny," he said. "The idea that social media companies are filtering out Conservative voices is a hoax! A tired narrative of imagined victimhood as the rest of the country grapples with a feckless president and an out-of-control administration. The majority designed this hearing to perpetuate this hoax."
Watch below.
