House Judiciary report finds Brazil censorship orders extended to Rumble

An interim staff report from the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday found that Brazil attempted to censor posts and videos on the social media platforms X and Rumble.

The 86-page report was a follow-up to a report on Brazil's efforts to censor posts on X last month. But the new documents show that the censorship extends to nine orders to the video platform Rumble, or Rumble-owned entities.

"Brazilian authorities, particularly Alexandre de Moraes, a justice on the Supreme Federal Court in Brazil, and the President of the Superior Electoral Court in Brazil, have ordered social media companies to suspend or remove popular accounts on Rumble," the committee said in a statement.

Rumble's CEO Chris Pavlovski is expected to testify in front of Congress this week, about other foreign governments trying to censor his platform, including the French government which wanted the platform to remove content posted on its site by Russia Today, according to Fox News. He said Rumble has also faced pressure from the governments of Australia and New Zealand.

The House report noted that the censorship orders are not limited to just Brazil and other foreign governments, but alleged that censorship is happening in the United States as well. 

"Like Brazil, the Biden Administration has attacked journalists, political opponents, and Americans across the political spectrum in an attempt to silence the Administration's many critics," the committee said. "These attacks on free speech abroad serve as a warning for America. The Committee and Select Subcommittee will continue to conduct oversight and develop legislative remedies to protect the First Amendment."

It comes after the committee released an 800-page report on May 1, which showed that the Biden White House pressured social media companies to censor certain reports, including ones on Facebook that claimed the COVID-19 pandemic came from a lab leak in China.