Censorship-industrial complex spreads like 'lice,' journalists say DOGE must 'sledgehammer' it

"Breaking news: Joe Biden lost the election."

Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen summarized Democrats' objections at a Republican-led House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday on the "censorship-industrial complex," citing new and bigger threats to free speech and checks on government power: Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency and President Trump's lawsuits against the media.

But Republicans and their witnesses, including two Twitter Files reporters long aligned with the political left, saw past as prologue and defended the Trump administration's work to gut agencies that jawboned social media to censor Biden White House-disapproved narratives and funded censorship tools, including the U.S. Agency for International Development.