Twitch, Discord probe powers through as tech CEOs open to testifying

WASHINGTON (CN) — The House Oversight Committee still expects to hear testimony from the CEOs of a handful of tech companies, including Discord and Twitch — though lawmakers are still hammering out the details, the panel’s chairman said Tuesday.

But Kentucky Representative James Comer said that, while a schedule remains in the works, “most” of the firms he invited to testify on their platforms’ role in political radicalization had signaled they would be open to appearing before Congress.

Following the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk and a shooting last month at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas, lawmakers on Capitol Hill have dialed in on internet culture and social media platforms, which some view as potential breeding grounds for political violence.

Tyler Robinson, the suspect in Kirk’s killing, confessed to the crime using online chat platform Discord — and both he and the ICE facility shooter had active profiles on the Steam video game marketplace.

Though there’s little evidence that either shooter’s use of Discord or interest in video games contributed to their actions, the gamer-focused messaging platform has been at the center of congressional oversight efforts. The Oversight Committee in September sent a letter to Discord CEO Humam Sakhnini requesting that he testify before the panel on “radicalization of online forum users.”

The House panel has also requested that the CEOs of Steam, Reddit and Amazon-owned streaming service Twitch appear before lawmakers.

The committee had initially planned to hold a hearing with the tech officials earlier this month, but the House has been out of session for weeks amid the government shutdown. An Oversight Committee spokesperson said at the time that the panel was still in communication with the four companies about potential testimony.

And on Tuesday, Comer said he was still planning to bring the tech CEOs before Congress.

“Obviously, we can’t do a hearing because of the shutdown, but we’re still communicating with the CEOs,” he told Courthouse News in an interview. “We had a date, but now we don’t know when to reschedule it because we don’t know when the government will reopen.”

Asked whether any of the CEOs had agreed to testify, the Oversight Committee chairman said he believed some of the firms’ chief executives were willing to appear before lawmakers and that the panel would “definitely” have either a public hearing or a closed-door interview with the tech officials.

“Finding the right date, that’s the problem,” Comer added.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the Oversight Committee had yet to publicly announce any date for a future hearing or interview with the tech CEOs. The House has not convened for several weeks amid the ongoing government shutdown, and House Speaker Mike Johnson has suggested that he could keep the lower chamber out of session indefinitely until lawmakers reach a deal to reopen the government.

Representatives from Discord, Twitch and Valve Corp., the company that owns Steam, have not returned repeated requests for comment on their cooperation with Congress. When asked late last month whether Reddit CEO Steve Huffman would testify, a spokesperson declined to comment but pointed out that Reddit had not found any evidence that Robinson, the suspected Kirk shooter, had been an active user.

In the wake of Kirk’s assassination, Comer said lawmakers have a duty to “oversee the online platforms that radicals have used to advance political violence.” He called on the heads of Discord, Steam, Reddit and Twitch to explain how they will ensure their services aren’t used “for nefarious purposes.”

Though the Oversight Committee appears to have focused its political violence inquiry on platforms associated with internet and gamer culture, there’s little evidence that exposure to video games increases the likelihood of violent behavior. The panel has also left other social media platforms out of its probe, such as Elon Musk’s X, which studies show experienced a dramatic spike in hate speech after the billionaire purchased the site in 2022.

Some critics have also suggested that the Oversight Committee may use a hearing with the tech CEOs — particularly Twitch CEO Dan Clancy — to call attention to left-leaning content creators using their platforms.

“Twitch is not a factor in the Tyler Robinson investigation at all, and yet they want to bring the platform into the story,” said Hasan Piker, a major Twitch streamer and left-leaning creator, in a post on X last month. “There is a sinister reason, and I think you all know what it is.”

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