Sessions to meet with states over concerns social media platforms are ‘intentionally stifling’ free exchange of ideas

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Jeff Sessions has scheduled a meeting with a number of state attorneys general to address concerns on whether social media platforms censor speech and the “free exchange of ideas”.

The US Justice Department’s spokesman Devin O’Malley said the US’s top legal and law enforcement official plans to discuss the influence of social media platforms with state attorneys general later this month.

“The attorney general has convened a meeting with a number of state attorneys general this month to discuss a growing concern that these companies may be hurting competition and intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas on their platforms,” he said.

The announcement comes after Facebook and Twitter top executives testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday morning, addressing criticism that their online platforms failed to combat foreign interference in US elections.

During the hearing, members of Congress also addressed concerns of bias on social media, and whether conservative speech has been censored or excluded from platforms. It is a claim Donald Trump has routinely touted; the US president alleged in a tweet last week that Google search results for “Trump News” were “rigged” by “National left-wing media”.

“Google and others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good,” he wrote on Twitter. “They are controlling what we can [and] cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!”

Facebook and Twitter, though, have been widely criticised for its censorship guidelines from people of all backgrounds and perspectives.

Last year, civil rights groups sent Facebook a letter charging that its platform disproportionately censored Facebook users of colour, while allowing hate speech from white supremacists.

According to leaked documents on Facebook’s policies, first published by VICE’s Motherboard in June, the tech giant makes a distinction between white nationalists and white supremacists. Facebook allows praise of “white nationalism as an ideology” but not ideas of or the use of the term “white supremacy”.