Jordan to FTC Chair Lina Khan: 'Identify All Journalists' (July 13, 2023)

On July 13, 2023, Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan testified at a House Judiciary Committee hearing titled “Oversight of the Federal Trade Commission” [1]. Republicans on the committee had spent months examining the FTC’s investigation of Twitter after Elon Musk bought the company in October 2022; in March, the committee’s Republican staff had issued a report accusing the agency of an “overreach to harass Elon Musk’s Twitter” [2]. The committee’s chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, opened his questioning on that subject. This video shows the exchange. All quotes below are from the official hearing record [1].

Key Moments

”Why are you harassing Twitter?”

“Madam Chair, why are you harassing Twitter?” Jordan began. Khan said the FTC’s work on Twitter went back a decade. “Twelve demand letters in 10 weeks, 300—over 350 separate requests you have demanded of Twitter. Why are you harassing them?” Jordan pressed. “Twitter has a history of lax security and privacy policies,” Khan answered, adding that it had been found that “Twitter’s lax privacy policies allowed unauthorized users to coopt Twitter accounts, including that of Fox News,” and that the company had then “voluntarily entered into a consent order with the FTC."

"Identify all journalists”

Jordan read from one of the FTC’s letters: “Identify all journalists and other members of the media to whom Twitter has granted access since Musk bought the company.” “You want to know the name of every journalist a private company has talked to? Do you think that’s consistent with the First Amendment?” “Congressman, as a former journalist, I take extremely seriously the valuable work that they do,” Khan said, acknowledging there can be instances in which government action is “unjustifiably chilling.” Jordan said the request came “in the context of giving us information about how government had suppressed speech on these platforms,” which made it “particularly troubling.” Khan replied: “The consent decree that we have prohibits Twitter from sharing personal information with third parties. When we read in the papers, like everybody else, that Twitter may have granted access to third parties, that’s what our teams were seeking information about."

"Who is David Roque?”

Jordan then read from a deposition the FTC had taken of David Roque, the Ernst & Young partner serving as the independent assessor under the consent decree, who testified that the FTC had made him feel “as if the FTC was trying to influence the outcome of the engagement before it had started.” Khan said she was not familiar with the specifics and would look into it. “Our staff are consummate professionals,” she said.

”Absolutely not”

Asked whether Democrats’ letters had prompted the investigation, Khan said: “Absolutely not. We look very closely at the specific matter at hand.” In a later answer she added: “Our focus is on protecting people’s privacy and security. Twitter has sensitive data on 150 million Americans, including private messages.” “Don’t put your finger on the scale and don’t attack the First Amendment and the rights of journalists,” Jordan concluded.

In May 2022, before Musk’s purchase, Twitter agreed to pay a $150 million penalty to settle charges that from 2013 to 2019 it had told users it collected their phone numbers and email addresses for account security, without disclosing that it also used them to target ads, affecting more than 140 million users. The FTC said that violated a 2011 order, which had followed two data breaches the agency attributed to lax security. The 2022 settlement added new requirements, and its compliance is checked by an independent assessor, the role Roque held [1][3][4].

Fact Check

“Twelve demand letters in 10 weeks … over 350 separate requests.” Consistent with the committee’s March 2023 staff report, which counted “over a dozen” FTC letters making “more than 350 specific demands” in less than three months after the acquisition [2].
The journalists request. Accurately quoted. The staff report says a December 13, 2022, FTC letter asked Twitter to identify all journalists given access and named four of them: Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger and Abigail Shrier [2]. Khan’s justification, that the order limits sharing users’ personal information, was her characterization of the decree’s purpose [1].
“A history of lax security and privacy policies.” Supported by the FTC’s record: the 2011 order and the 2022 settlement for violating it [3].

What Happened Next

In court: The same week, X asked a federal court in California to end the consent order, saying the FTC’s investigation had become tainted by bias [5].
The committee’s finding: In October 2024, a second Republican staff report said that “despite investigating Twitter’s compliance with the consent decree for more than a year,” the FTC “found that Musk’s Twitter honored that commitment” to comply [6].