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WASHINGTON (CN) — Members of Congress are set to grill the heads of major social media and gaming companies next month, as lawmakers attempt to frame the services as breeding grounds for political radicalization and even violence.
The move comes as Capitol Hill weighs its options for responding to last week’s assassination of conservative commentator and organizer Charlie Kirk. Investigators say Tyler Robinson, the suspect in the Kirk shooting, engraved internet and gaming references onto bullet casings and confessed to the crime using online chat platform Discord.
Though exact motives remain unclear — and little evidence has emerged so far that Robinson’s use of Discord or interest in video games contributed to his suspected actions — the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday sent letters to the platform’s CEO, Humam Sakhnini, and the heads of several other companies requesting they testify before Congress.
Among the other CEOs asked to appear are Reddit’s Steve Huffman, Dan Clancy of Twitch and Gabe Newell, the CEO and co-founder of video game developer Valve Corporation and Steam, Valve’s digital game distribution service and marketplace.
According to the letters published by the House oversight panel, the hearing scheduled for October will examine “radicalization of online forum users, including incidents of open incitement to commit violent politically motivated acts.”
Representatives for Valve, Reddit, Discord and Amazon, which owns the Twitch streaming service, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a statement Wednesday, Kentucky Representative James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, directly tied the panel’s scrutiny to Kirk’s assassination.
“In the wake of this tragedy, and amid other acts of politically motivated violence, Congress has a duty to oversee the online platforms that radicals have used to advance political violence,” Comer wrote. “To prevent future radicalization and violence, the CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch and Reddit must appear before the Oversight Committee and explain what actions they will take to ensure their platforms are not exploited for nefarious purposes.”
Though lawmakers have previously hauled tech CEOs — including the former head of Discord — before Congress to discuss their platform’s safety measures, this group of potential panelists appears tightly focused on companies associated with video game and internet culture, which has become a central part of the discourse surrounding Kirk’s killing.
The move also comes just a day after House Speaker Mike Johnson told Courthouse News that congressional Republicans were “looking at all angles” to respond to Kirk’s assassination.
Following the Turning Point USA founder’s shooting at a Utah college campus last week, authorities reported that they had discovered a bolt-action rifle and ammunition engraved with messages that alluded to video games and internet communities.
Robinson himself appeared to be an avid gamer. A Steam account reportedly associated with the suspect shows thousands of hours logged in video games of various genres.
Decades of studies have dispelled arguments that exposure to video games is connected to violent behavior. And the Oversight Committee’s focus on gaming platforms and internet communities notably leaves out major social media platforms such as Elon Musk’s X — which recent studies have shown experienced as much as a 50% spike in hate speech in the months following his 2022 purchase of the service.
However, lawmakers have in recent years grilled major social media CEOs, including former X head Linda Yaccarino and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, on what some have claimed is their platforms’ failure to shield children from harassment or harmful content. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee last year famously pressured Zuckerberg to stand during a hearing and apologize directly to parents gathered in the chamber.
Congress has long weighed new regulations for social media companies, including legislation that would repeal Section 230 of the Communications Act, a 1996 revision which granted legal immunity to internet platforms for most user-generated content.
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