During a conference call on March 13 discussing the bailout of California-based Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Senator Mark Kelly inquired about the possibility of censoring information on social media to prevent bank runs. The conversation included representatives from the Department of the Treasury, the Federal Deposit and Insurance Corporation, and the Federal Reserve. Kelly’s concern stemmed from the potential of depositors panicking and withdrawing their funds from banks en masse.
Three GOP members who attended the call confirmed Kelly’s remarks. Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) stated that around 200 individuals, including lawmakers and their staff from both congressional chambers, were on the call led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Massie recalled a Democratic senator asking the three agencies if there was an ongoing social media program to censor information that could trigger a bank run.
Though the senator’s concern seemed to revolve around foreign actors, there was no mention of limiting censorship to foreigners or false information. The representatives from the three agencies did not provide an answer to the inquiry.
Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) corroborated Kelly’s statements in a tweet, mentioning that a Congress member asked the agencies if they were working with Facebook and Twitter to monitor misinformation and “bad actors.” A representative from her office confirmed that the member referred to was a Democratic senator. Representative Dan Bishop (R-NC) also backed the accounts of his GOP colleagues, explicitly naming Kelly as the senator raising the censorship issue.
A spokesperson for Senator Kelly’s office refuted the allegations, stating that the claim was false and that Kelly had only inquired about foreign adversaries potentially exploiting the situation by disseminating misinformation.
Massie further discussed Kelly’s comments during a March 13 appearance on “Jesse Watters Primetime” on Fox News. He told host Jesse Watters that Kelly asked if there was an effective program to censor social media information to prevent bank runs. However, Massie noted that Kelly did not specify censoring false or foreign information, leaving the scope open-ended, which he found concerning.
Silicon Valley Bank was seized by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation on March 10 after a bank run left it without funds. The bank run was triggered by SVB’s disclosure of a $1.8 billion loss on asset sales due to high-interest rates and a decline in its stock price.
In addition to this situation, Congressional Democrats have sought censorship in various contexts, such as alleged disinformation on Twitter and other social networks, as well as Fox News host Tucker Carlson for airing previously unseen footage of the January 6 false flag riot.
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The Publicade